Week of the Wish Granter
by Count Morningstar
Summary: The long-awaited sequel to Thunder in Kanto. While getting ready for a concert in a small Sinnoh Region town, Bolt Hanson is reunited with his lost love, Christine. Meanwhile, the Legendary Pokemon known as Jirachi begins causing mischief. Takes place during Dusk of the Dead and Magma Rising.
1. Seeing You Again

**Introduction:** This next story is one that's been a really long time in the making. When I started the _Thunder in Kanto_ story, I kept wondering how I was ever going to solve things with Bolt and Christine, and this story is the best solution I could come up with. So while Ash and Misty were dealing with the Marowak Ghost of Lavender Town in _Dusk of the Dead_ , and while Lisa and Marie were facing _Team Magma_ in Magma Rising, Bolt and his fellow band members were dealing with the events that this story is about to recount.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokemon.

* * *

Chapter 1: "Seeing You Again"

In the Sinnoh Region, near the based of the famed Mt. Coronet was a small town called Stardust Falls. The town was so named for the magnificent waterfalls that flowed down from the mountain right where the town was founded. According to local legend, the falls got their name from a small comet that crashed into the side of the mountain. It is said that the comet impact was what caused water trapped inside the mountain to flow down its side. The legend also stated that the comet brought with it a fabled Pokemon that was said to grant wishes to anyone who encountered it.

It was late in the afternoon as Trevor "Bolt" Hanson looked out at these legendary falls. He and the rest of his band, Raging Thunder had come to the town as part of a rock music festival that the town held every three years. Walking up to Bolt as he looked at the falls was a young man who, like Bolt, was in his mid twenties. He had blonde hair styled in a mullet along with a thick mustache, and wore black jeans and a white jacket with the sleeves rolled up over a blue t-shirt. On his wrist was a thick black bracelet with a light-blue marble-like stone fitted into the top. The young man in question was the keyboardist for Bolt's band, Quinton Mercury.

"Hey Bolt, we're almost done setting up on the stage." Quinton reported. "We should be able to begin rehearsal here in a few minutes."

"I'll be there in a bit." The blonde rocker replied. "You know, these waterfalls sure are quite the sight."

"I'll say." Quinton agreed as he stepped closer to the railing to take a closer look. "You know, we really are blessed to have gotten a gig at this rock festival. People from all over come here just to see it."

"Well it's about time we got a gig at this thing, considering we've had like what, eight hit albums?" Bolt recalled.

"Nine, actually." Quinton corrected. "Our little band really has come a long way from when we first played on the roof of that Pokemon Center."

At that moment, two other young men in their mid twenties approached Bolt and Quinton. One had long white hair and wore a black headband and a black leather jacket over a yellow t-shirt with faded blue jeans. This was the bass player for Bolt's band, Ross Jones. The other young man had long dark hair with a thin black mustache, and wore orange sunglasses with a black vest over a long-sleeved tan shirt with black jeans. Around the dark-haired young man's wrist was a thick bracelet that was practically identical to Quinton's. This was the drummer of Bolt's band, Ted "Skins" Vincent.

"Hey Bolt, we're ready to go when you are." Ross reported. "You and Quinton can sightsee later."

"Okay man, we're on our way." Bolt replied. "Let's get ready to rock this town."

"There you guys are!" a voice suddenly cut in. "I've been looking all over for you."

Standing a few feet away from Bolt and the rest of the gang was a woman who looked to be in her early twenties. She had long dark-blue hair that grew half way down her back and very deep forest-green eyes. Bolt also couldn't help but notices that the woman had a fairly impressive bust that was barely contained by a tight low-cut black t-shirt that had the name of his band written on the front in yellow handwritten letters. The rest of her outfit consisted of a pair of tight-fitting jean shorts and red sneakers. She had a small white bag slung over her back, and on her right wrist was a thin silver bracelet with a light-blue marble-like stone fitted into the top.

Bolt almost instantly removed his sunglasses to reveal his brown eyes and began to walk over to the girl. The rest of the gang followed close behind him.

"Why hello there, beautiful." Bolt greeted in a suave manner as he took the girl's hand. "You must be quite the fan of me and my band to come looking all this way for us."

"If you're after something other than an autograph, I'm sure something can be arranged." Ross added.

"Back off, dude. I saw her first." Bolt told him.

"Oh… my… GOD!" the girl exclaimed. "Don't you idiots recognize me? It's me! Lorain Verdant? We traveled all over Kanto together for months!"

Bolt and the others all dropped their jaws in utter shock upon finding out just who the blunette was. Ten years before, Bolt and the others traveled around Kanto with a young Bug Pokemon enthusiast named Lorain Verdant, but back then Lorain was short, had thick glasses and wore her hair in pigtails. She looked nothing like the tall goddess that stood before them now.

"Holy crap!" Bolt exclaimed as he quickly let go of Lorain's hand and put his sunglasses back on. "Wow! Lorain? You uh… you uh… I mean wow! You…"

"You turned out hot!" Skins declared, prompting Quinton to stomp on his foot.

"What Skins was trying to say is that you've really grown since we last saw you." Quinton explained.

"Yeah, and you perverts haven't changed one bit." Lorain replied with a look of irritation.

"So, uh… what brings you here, kid?" Ross asked.

"I was in the area when I heard you guys were going to be in the big rock festival here in town." Lorain explained. "I thought this would be a great time for us to catch up."

"So what've you been up to Lorain?" Quinton asked.

"Oh you know, just traveling the world trying to catch and raise more bugs." Lorain answered. "I actually spent the last three years helping my parents with some research in Kalos. I guess I don't need to ask how you guys have been doing though. You know I have all your albums."

"Yeah, our band's done pretty well for itself." Bolt replied. "Um… if all of you will excuse me, I think I'm going to take a quick walk."

Quinton and the others watched as Bolt walked away in silence with his hands in his pockets.

"Is Bolt okay?" Lorain asked.

"Probably just embarrassed more than anything after the way he just came onto you." Quinton assumed. "I mean you've always been like a little sister to all of us."

Lorain sighed. "I'm glad that's all it is, considering what else is going on in this town."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ross asked.

"I guess you guys don't know." Lorain began. "I was reading this town's local newspaper and ran across an article in the society page. Richter Chase and Christine Wyler are getting married here, tomorrow."

"…Son of a bitch!" Skins cursed as a look of shock came to his face.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" Ross exclaimed. "That's happening _here_?"

"Yeah. It seems Christine's father has a villa here." Lorain explained. "That's where they're holding the wedding."

"Well… we knew it was only a matter of time before this happened." Quinton reminded them. "Christine was already promised to Richter when we met her. But for the wedding to happen here and now…"

"When Bolt finds out about this, he'll be crushed." Ross declared.

"So… I guess this means Bolt never really got over Christine, huh?" Lorain deduced.

"Over the years, Bolt's had more than a fling or two." Quinton answered. "I mean we all have, what with us being internationally famous rock stars and all. But he's never been in a relationship as serious as the one he had with Christine."

"It's not gonna be pretty when Bolt finds out about the wedding." Ross declared. "I just hope he doesn't do anything stupid."

* * *

Bolt had been walking for almost half an hour lost in deep thought. His chance reunion with Lorain had not only been awkward, it had also brought back a lot of memories, some not very pleasant. That time he had spent in Kanto was probably both the best and worst time of his life. It was in Kanto where Bolt first met all of the other members of his band, but it was also the region where he had met the only girl he ever had real feelings for, Christine Wyler. Bolt had first met Christine while passing through Mt. Moon.

For Bolt, it was practically love at first sight with Christine. She was not only beautiful; she had the most magnificent singing voice Bolt had ever heard. Though perhaps what Bolt had loved most about Christine was her kind heart. The attraction between Bolt and Christine was mutual, and for a while they traveled around Kanto together. Though it seemed that Christine and Bolt's relationship had not been meant to be. Christine's father had already arranged her to marry a young man named Richter Chase, a powerful Ground Pokemon trainer who had quickly become Bolt's nemesis.

Richter had also been the leader of the Viridian City Gym, and after Bolt had managed to beat Richter in a gym battle, Christine had suddenly decided to go back to Richter for some unknown reason. Bolt could never figure out why Christine had gone back to Richter. Quinton and the others thought that perhaps Richter or Christine's father had put some kind of pressure on her, though none of them could be entirely sure if that was the case. Whatever the reason, Bolt had utterly crushed when Christine had left. It had taken Bolt a long time to get over that pain, but remembering that time in Kanto had shown Bolt that the wound had never fully healed.

Just as Bolt was about to head back and rejoin the others, he suddenly heard a very familiar song on the wind. At first he thought he might just be hearing things, but it soon became clear that he wasn't. It was the song of Meloetta.

Bolt pulled a pokeball from his belt. "Help me out, Raikou!"

Bursting out of the thrown ball with a roar was a yellow saber-toothed cat with black stripes. It had red eyes, and over its nose was something that looked a blue X. A dark-grey crest covered its forehead, and on its back was a purple thundercloud that flowed like a cape. The beast's slender light-blue tail looked like a lightning bolt striking the ground.

Bolt got onto Raikou's back. "Follow that song, Raikou! And hurry up!"

The tiger of thunder nodded before taking off like a rocket down the road. Raikou jumped off the path and ran down the side of a steep ragged hill. Bolt held on for dear life as the tiger ran down towards the bottom, jumping from the large rocks that were sticking out of the hill. When they reached the bottom, they saw another Pokemon sitting on a large rock and singing her heart out. It was small humanoid Pokemon with a very feminine shape.

The Pokemon in question had a large almost ovular head with big green eyes and long mint-green hair that looked like music bars with notes flowing down the left side of her. On the right side of her head there was what looked like a black headset microphone that resembled a treble clef. Much of the Pokemon's body looked to be covered in a black dress with a long skirt that opened in front to reveal a pair of thin white legs. Across her midriff was something that looked like a green sash. There was no question what species the Pokemon was: it was Meloetta.

Upon seeing Bolt, Meloetta immediately stopped singing and flew up to him. She took the blonde rocker's hand and tried pulling him off Raikou. Bolt quickly dismounted the tiger of thunder and followed Meloetta to where she was trying to take him. On the ground before them was a young woman in her twenties who was out gold. She had long shimmering dark-brown hair and was wearing a simple sky-blue dress with a pair of high-heeled sandals. The heel of the right sandal had been broken. Bolt instantly recognized the young woman as his lost love, Christine Wyler. The Meloetta he had just encountered was her Pokemon.

Bolt quickly went over and kneeled down to check out Christine. She had a swollen black eye and a streak of blood across her forehead.

Bolt began to gently shake Christine to try and get her to wake up. "Christine! Christine, come on!"

After a few tense moments, Christine finally opened her pale-blue eyes. "Bolt? Is… is that really you?"

"It's me, babe." Bolt confirmed as he breathed a sigh of relief. "What the hell happened?"

Suddenly tears came to Christine's eyes. "I killed my father!"

* * *

It was around 5:30 as thirty-seven-year-old Gloria Finch pulled into the driveway of her small house in Stardust Falls. She had just finished another soul-crushing day at her dead end office job. Every day for Gloria was practically the same. Day in and day out, she was stuck sitting in an office cubical answering phone calls and filling out meaningless reports that no one would ever actually read. It was far from being a glamorous job, but it at least paid the bills.

Gloria went into her house, slipped off her shoes, turned on the T.V. and opened the window to let in the breeze; the same thing she did at the end of every day. She then went back to her bedroom and sighed as soon as she saw her reflection in the mirror. Her dark hair was done up in its usual bun and she had on horn-rimmed glasses like the kind her great aunt Gertrude wore. She was by no means unattractive yet at the same time not a woman that most guys would call drop dead gorgeous. As Gloria undid her bun, she once again found herself wishing that she could change not just her appearance, but also her whole life.

Many times Gloria would find herself fantasizing about what she might do if she ever had a few million dollars. She would quit her job, move to a mansion in the Alola Region, and maybe even get a boob job. Of course Gloria knew that such a thing would never happen to someone like her. She had a better chance of getting hit by lightning than suddenly getting rich.

"Hello there!" a cheerful child-like voice suddenly spoke in Gloria's head.

Startled, Gloria cried out and turned around. Floating before her was a small white creature with a fairly humanoid body. It had short arms and two very stubby legs. The creature had a cute face with two blue triangular markings under its small dark eyes, and its chest looked like it had a third much larger eye that was closed. Atop its head was a yellow headdress with three large points that had a blue tag hanging from the end of each one. Hanging from the creature's back were two yellow ribbons that were almost like a cape.

"What… what are you?" Gloria asked the creature. "How did you get in here?"

"I'm Jirachi, the wish granter." The creature answered. "As for how I got in, I came in through your open window."

"What're you doing here?" Gloria asked.

"I've come to grant you a wish." Jirachi answered. "Whatever you desire, I can make a reality."

Gloria gave the Pokemon a dumbfounded look. "Are you for real?"

"Of course!" Jirachi answered. "I am as real as you are."

"Okay, but… why me?" Gloria asked. "Why pick my house to fly into?"

"Because it was there." Jirachi answered as he did a flip in the air. "Now then, what is it that you wish for?"

"…You said that you could grant me any wish I want?" Gloria asked.

"That's right! Anything that your heart desires I can make happen." Jirachi answered.

"Okay then. What the hell?" Gloria replied. "I wish for a hundred-million dollars to appear in my house right now!"

"That's easy enough." Jirachi responded. "Consider it granted!"

Suddenly the room was bathed in a bright silvery light. When the light cleared, the bed, the floor and all the furniture in Gloria's room had been covered in piles of money. Feeling both stunned and giddy, Gloria ran to the living room with Jirachi following close behind. Every piece of furniture in her living room was also covered in money piles, even the top of her small T.V. set. Gloria began to laugh and threw some of the money into the air. She wanted to go back to her room, take off all her clothes and roll around naked in the pile of cash on her bed.

"I take it this pleases you." Jirachi observed.

"You bet your little ass it does!" Gloria told him. "Hold on… there's something I gotta do."

With that, Gloria pulled out her phone and called her boss's number. She put the phone to her ear and waited patiently for him to pick up.

"Hello? Mr. Wilson?" Gloria began when her boss picked up on the other end of the line. "This is Gloria Finch. I'm just calling to tell you that I quit! You can take that soul-sucking job of mine and shove it up your ass!"

Gloria hung up the phone and threw another pile of money into the air as laughed with glee. Suddenly the game show that was running on the T.V. changed to the image of a female newscaster with long pink hair wearing a blue blazer.

 _"We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin."_ The newscaster announced. _"The Stardust Falls Bank has just reported that a hundred-million dollars has mysteriously vanished from its vault. Authorities are at a loss as to how the money vanished, but have begun a massive search to find the culprit of this baffling robbery."_

Gloria felt her heart drop into her stomach. "Uh… Jirachi? Did… did you take the ten-million dollars that I wished for… from that bank?"

"Why yes!" Jirachi cheerfully confirmed. "Is that a problem?"

"Of course it's a goddamn problem! You just gave me a bunch of stolen money!" Gloria screamed. "If the cops find me with it, I'm screwed! What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Not my concern." Jirachi answered as he headed for the window. "Have a nice life!"

With that, Jirachi was gone. Gloria was left alone with piles of stolen money that she couldn't get rid of.

Gloria went over to the couch and slumped into the pile of money covering it. "I hate my life."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I forgot to mention up top that the title of this song comes from a Dan Fogelberg song. Anyway, this Jirachi is not going to be anything like the one from that movie featuring May's annoying little brother, Max. This one will be a lot more twisted.

Please review and let me know what you think.


	2. Doom Desire

**Author's Note:** I'd like to thank everyone who left a review of the first chapter. I'm really thrilled about the response this story has gotten so far. Anyway, I got this entire chapter done late last night before going to bed. It only took me a couple of hours to do, but I've visualized how this next part of the story was going to go so many times that I guess it just came pretty easily to me.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokemon.

* * *

Chapter 2: Doom Desire

Bolt had gotten Christine to the hospital as quickly as he could after finding her. It seemed that she had suffered a pretty bad fall down the hill from the night before. Thankfully when the doctors had checked Christine out, they found that besides the head injury she had only suffered a sprained ankle and a few bumps and bruises. Though because of the head injury, the doctors had wanted to keep Christine overnight as a precaution. As Christine was checked into a room, Bolt contacted the others and told them about what had happened.

Night was falling as Bolt headed for Christine's room to talk to her. When he reached the door, Bolt found that he was filled with a storm of emotions. The blonde rocker took a deep breath and opened the door. Christine was sitting up in her bed looking out the window. A thick bandage had been wrapped around her head and the swelling of her black eye had gone down considerably. Sitting on the nightstand by Christine's bed were the pokeballs that contained her five Pokemon. She had been carrying the pokeballs in the pocket of her dress in their compact form.

"Hey." Bolt spoke, causing Christine to turn from the window. "I heard from the doctors. They said you're probably going to be okay."

"I'll live, but… I'm not sure if I'll ever really be okay." Christine replied.

"So… what did you mean when you said you killed your dad?" Bolt asked.

"…Before I get into that, I want to tell you about why I suddenly left you for Richter that day in the Viridian Gym." Christine told him. "Believe it or not, it actually has something to do with your question." She paused and took a deep breath. "The only reason I left you Bolt was because my father and Richter had evidence that my mother, my real mother, had killed someone. It was in self-defense, but the man she killed had some powerful friends who would've done everything in their power to send her to jail. If I didn't leave you and go back to Richter, my father would've given that evidence to the police, and I just couldn't let my mother go to jail."

Bolt sighed. "Quinton and the guys thought it was probably something like that. To me it was the only thing that made sense. Still… you ripped out my heart that day, Christine. It took me over two years to get over what happened, not that I ever really did."

"I know. What I did really hurt me too." Christine replied. "Did… did you ever see anyone else after me?"

"…I've had a few relationships, but… none of them ever really lasted." Bolt answered. "No other girl could compare to you."

"You have no idea how sorry I am, Bolt." Christine told him as a tear came to her eye.

"…What does what happened back then have to do with killing your dad?" Bolt asked.

Christine sighed and looked back out the window. "It all happened last night…"

* * *

 _It was just after dinner as Christine headed up the stairs to her room. She had suffered a miserable afternoon and evening dealing with her stepmother and a seemingly endless parade of wedding planners. Of course Christine knew that what she had just gone through was going to be nothing compared to the actual wedding itself. Christine felt like she was approaching the day of her execution, though an execution would be more merciful. An execution would mean an end to her suffering, but instead she was going to spend the rest of her life as Mrs. Richter Chase. That sort of life was going to be its own special kind of hell._

 _Just as Christine reached the stairs, something on the table near the door had caught her eye. One of the butlers had set the mail there, and on top of the pile of mail was a flyer that had a familiar name on it. Christine went to take a closer look and saw that it was a flyer for the Stardust Falls Rock Festival, and one of the bands playing the event was Raging Thunder. Christine couldn't believe that Bolt was suddenly so close to where she was. Ever since what happened in Viridian City, Christine had followed Bolt's musical career as best she could. It was the only way she could still feel close to him._

 _"There you are, Christine." An all too familiar voice spoke from behind._

 _Christine turned around, quickly hiding the flyer for the rock festival behind her back. Standing before her was a young man with olive-green eyes slightly long straight dark hair, a lock of which covered his right eye. The man wore a dark-brown pinstripe suit with a black shirt and red tie. This of course was Christine's husband-to-be, Richter Chase._

 _"What do you want, Richter?" Christine asked._

 _"It seems your mother want another opinion from us about the table arrangements." Richter explained. He then quirked his brow when he noticed she was holding something behind her back. "What're you hiding?"_

 _"Nothing!" Christine answered._

 _Richter stormed over and took the flyer from her hand. Seeing what was written on it, Richter angrily crumpled the paper in his hand._

 _"So… after all this time you're still pining for that low-class piece of trash." Richter observed. "Just forget about him, Christine! You belong to me!"_

 _"You may think you own, Richter… but I will never love you!" Christine declared._

 _Richter punched Christine in the face and knocked her to the floor. Before she could get back up, Richter kicked her twice in the side. All she could do was lay there coughing._

 _"Just in case you get any ideas about running off again to be with that rock star, remember that your father still has the evidence that could send your biological mother to jail for the rest of her life." Richter reminded her. "It's up there right now in his office safe here in the villa. And he won't hesitate for a moment to send that evidence to the cops if you try and back out of our wedding. Why don't you take some time to think about that?"_

 _With that, Richter stormed out of the room. After Christine finally got off the floor, she went up to her room and gathered up her Pokemon. Christine then managed to sneak out of the villa and into the surrounding forest. She just needed to get out and get some air, to just get away from Richter and everything that had to do with her wedding. Christine wandered aimlessly until she came upon what appeared to be some kind of shrine. In the center of the shrine was some sort of large red crystal. It looked to Christine that something was inside of the Crystal, but she couldn't tell what._

 _Seeing the shrine as a good place to rest, Christine sent out Meloetta. Upon emerging from her ball, Meloetta noticed that Christine was starting to develop a black eye. Concerned, the songstress Pokemon went over to see if her human partner was okay._

 _"I don't know if I can live like this, Meloetta." Christine told her on the verge of tears. "I think I'd rather die than spend the rest of my life with Richter."_

 _After a moment, Meloetta began to sing in the hopes of cheering Christine up. After a moment, Christine joined the songstress Pokemon in her song. Christine had always felt a little bit better when she sang. As the pair's duet neared its completion, the red crystal in the center of the shrine began to give off a brilliant light. Once the song finally ended, the light flashed and the crystal vanished. Floating where the crystal once stood was Jirachi. The little wish granting Pokemon yawned and opened the two eyes on his face._

 _"Oh! Hello there." A cheerful child-like voice spoke in Christine's head. "Was that your song I was hearing?"_

 _"Who… what are you?" Christine asked._

 _"I am Jirachi!" the little Pokemon answered. "It seems your song has awakened me a little bit early. I don't think I was supposed to wake up for another few hundred years."_

 _"Oh. I'm sorry." Christine told him._

 _"There's no need to apologize." Jirachi assured her. "For a being like me who only spends a week at a time awake, an early wakeup call is quite welcome. If you don't mind me saying so though, your song sounded… what's the word I'm looking for? Ah yes! Sad."_

 _"I am sad." Christine admitted. "I'm going to marry a man I don't love… a man who's an absolute monster."_

 _"Hmm… from what little I know about human relationships, that seems quite illogical." Jirachi remarked. "Why would you bond yourself to a mate you seem to despise?"_

 _"It's because I don't have a choice." Christine answered. "If I don't marry this person, my father will use the evidence he has on my mother… my real mother to jail."_

 _"You do seem to have a unique problem." Jirachi observed. "But perhaps I can be of help. I am a Pokemon that can grant any wish a human may desire. As thanks for waking me up, I will grant you such a wish."_

 _"You're saying I whatever I wish for, you can make happen?" Christine asked._

 _"That is correct." Jirachi confirmed. "There is practically no wish that I can't make a reality."_

 _"…Okay then." Christine spoke. "Then I wish… I wish that the evidence against my mother could just burn away and that I could be free of my father and stepmother forever!"_

 _"Seems simple enough." Jirachi replied. "So be it."_

 _With that, Jirachi closed his eyes and the large eye on his chest opened up. The large eye gave off a brilliant silvery light that was beautiful to Christine and Meloetta to behold. Suddenly Christine heard a loud explosion in the distance. As the light faded and Jirachi closed his eye, Christine turned and saw the light of a fire coming from the direction of the villa. Christine ran towards the light with Meloetta and Jirachi flying close behind. When Christine made it back to the villa, she found that it was completely on fire._

 _"What… what happened?" a horrified Christine asked. "What did you do, Jirachi?"_

 _"I granted your wish!" Jirachi cheerfully answered. "For the sake of simplicity, I turned the incriminating evidence you spoke of into a powerful explosive that detonated instantly. Everyone in this building, including you father and stepmother, is now dead."_

 _Christine dropped to her knees. "How could you? How could you do something so horrible?"_

 _"I fail to see what your problem is." Jirachi answered, still in his cheerful tone. "I merely granted your wish in the most effective way possible. Now that your father and stepmother are dead, you are free from your influence."_

 _"But you killed them!" Christine told the wish granter. "You killed them and everyone in the house! How could you do something so coldblooded?"_

 _"Ah! I see. I forget that you humans take the death of your own kind quite hard." Jirachi recalled. "And what I have just done would be considered the crime you call murder."_

 _"And you don't feel bad about that at all?" Christine asked._

 _"To use one of your human expressions," Jirachi spoke as he flew close to Christine's face, "I don't give a crap."_

 _With that, Jirachi flew off into the night sky. Christine managed to get back to her feet and ran from the burning villa as fast as she could. Meloetta flew after her instantly. After running aimlessly through the forest, Christine broke the heel of her sandal and twisted her ankle before falling down the hill. The last thing she remembered was everything going dark after hitting her head on something._

* * *

"…The next thing I remember is seeing you." Christine spoke as she finished her tale. "I don't know what happened to Jirachi."

"…Holy crap!" Bolt declared. "So… your dad really is dead?"

"My father, my stepmother, and every one of the servants who worked at the villa." Christine answered. "Richter probably died in the explosion to." Christine once again broke into tears. "They're all dead because of me. I'm a murderer!"

Bolt instantly went over to comfort Christine. "Hey! This isn't your fault. You didn't know that this Jirachi you woke up would pull something like this. Don't go blaming yourself for what happened. You could never be a murderer."

With that, Christine completely broke down and began to sob. Bolt held her close, trying his best to comfort her. It broke his heart to see Christine the way she was now. He stayed there holding Christine for several minutes before she finally cried herself to sleep.

* * *

Lorain and the rest of Bolt's band had been hanging out in the hospital waiting room for hours ever since Bolt had called them there. It was close to midnight by the time finally came in to report on Christine's condition.

"How is she?" Quinton asked the blonde rocker.

Bolt let out a heavy sigh. "She's a total wreck. I mean she wasn't banged up too badly, but… man!"

"What the hell happened to her?" Ross asked.

After a few moments, Bolt sat down in one of the chairs and told the gang everything that Christine had told him about the incident with Jirachi. By the time he completed the tale, the others were left just as stunned as he had been.

"Dude! That's messed up!" Skins declared.

"That's a total understatement, Skins." Ross told him. "Are we sure this is for real?"

"Well, I looked into some of the history about this town, and there are some legends that say a Jirachi sleeps somewhere near the falls." Quinton answered. "But I've never heard anything about a Jirachi having such a bizarre personality."

"I was surfing the web a little while ago just to kill some time, and I did see a news story on there saying that a mansion in the area had burned down during the night." Lorain revealed. "I guess that must've been the villa belonging to Christine's dad."

"Did the news say if there were any survivors or casualties?" Quinton asked.

"They did find a bunch of dead bodies, but none of them have been identified yet as far as I know." Lorain answered.

"Can't say I'm too broken up about Christine's dad being burnt to a crisp." Ross admitted.

"Neither can I." Quinton agreed. "Still… this is screwed up on so many levels."

"Does Christine know where Jirachi went?" Lorain asked.

"She doesn't have a clue." Bolt answered. "But with a psycho Pokemon like that on the loose, I get the feeling that some really bad stuff is about to go down."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Around the time I first started _Thunder in Kanto_ , I thought long and hard about how I was going to get Christine out of that situation with Richter. I kept hitting a bunch of dead ends until one day I read that Jirachi could be awakened from its thousand year sleep a little early by the song of a pure-hearted person. After that, the idea for this little story formed. Of course this Jirachi is nothing like the cute and cuddly one from that Hoenn saga movie. For this story, I wanted a Jirachi with a personality similar to that of Kyube from the hit anime, _Puella Magi Madoka Magica_. And in case anyone complains, keep in mind that the anime has shown Pokemon that are "evil". Anyone remember that wild Togepi that used Attract on Ash's Pikachu to make him into her slave?

Please review and let me know what you think.


	3. The Sculptor's Dream

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokemon.

* * *

Chapter 3: The Sculptor's Dream

It was mid-morning as Ross sat at a long table in the hotel lounge drinking a cup of coffee. Lorain was sitting in the chair to Ross's left, her laptop open to some kind of spreadsheet regarding the stats of her current team of Bug Pokemon. Neither of them had really said anything to one another since they sat down, as both their minds were very much on other things. Just then, Quinton entered the room carrying a huge stack of books in his arms. The blonde keyboardist dropped the stack of books on the table, almost causing Ross's cup of coffee to spill onto his lap.

"Well, this is everything the town library had with stuff relating to Jirachi." Quinton informed them. "Hopefully some of the local folklore will give us an idea about just what we're up against with this Jirachi Christine told Bolt about."

Ross calmly took another sip from his cup. "Hey Quinton… do you think that Bolt and Christine will end up getting back together?"

Ross's question caused Lorain to look up from her laptop.

"Why the heck are you suddenly asking about that?" Quinton asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, Christine is pretty much available again now that her dad's charcoal and the stuff he was using to blackmail her is fried too." Ross pointed out. "From the sound of it, that bastard Richter is dead too. Bolt has a shot with her again."

"I suppose, but it's not exactly like Bolt and Christine can just pick up where they left off again." Quinton pointed out. "Even though she was forced into it, Christine still just took Bolt's heart and crushed it in a vice that day in Viridian City. I'm sure that's a hard thing for Bolt to get past."

"Yeah, but… it still seems like Bolt has some pretty strong feelings for her." Ross pointed out. "Who knows? Maybe those two will end up hooking up again after all this stuff with Jirachi is over."

Suddenly Lorain slammed her laptop shut. "If you ask me, Bolt's better off without Christine. She hurt him before, and she'll probably hurt him again! Now if you guys will excuse me…"

With that, Lorain stood from her chair, picked up her laptop and left the room. Ross and Quinton watched as she left.

"What the hell was that about?" a confused Ross asked.

"How should I know? Now how 'bout you make yourself useful and help me look through these books?" Quinton requested.

Ross sighed and picked up one of the books Quinton had brought in. The two of them began reading in silence.

* * *

After seeing that Christine seemed to be suffering no residual damage from her head injury, the doctors had decided to release Christine from the hospital. Though she had to use crutches for at least a few weeks because of her sprained ankle. Of course because Christine had nowhere else to go due to her father's villa burning down, Bolt had decided to take her back with him to the hotel. The two of them had been walking though town in utter silence since leaving the hospital.

"I guess… everything that just happened proves that I'm no different from my mother." Christine suddenly spoke.

"What the heck do you mean?" Bolt asked.

"I told you about how she killed someone." Christine reminded him. "It was in self-defense, but still… I'm just as much a murderer as she is."

"Christine, you had no way of knowing that Jirachi would just blow up your dad's place like that." Bolt pointed out.

"Maybe, but… I think that if I never found Jirachi and made that wish… I probably would've killed Richter eventually." Christine told him. "Maybe shot him like my mother shot that man. I don't know."

"What're you talking about?" Bolt asked. "I'd like to think I still know you pretty well, Christine. And that doesn't sound like the kind of thing you'd do."

Tears came to Christine's eyes. "You don't what it was like, Bolt. You don't know what it was like after I was forced to leave you back in Viridian City. When I got home, my father and Richter were more brutal to me than ever. Both of them started beating me on a regular basis, though Richter was the one who beat me more. My father usually found other ways to torture me. My life became and absolute hell! And with the wedding just around the corner… I just couldn't live like that anymore!"

"Christine…" Bolt spoke, totally at a loss for words.

"I just wanted it to stop, Bolt!" Christine cried. "I just wanted it to stop!"

At that point Christine once again broke down sobbing. Bolt quickly pulled her into an embrace to try and calm her down.

"It's okay." Bolt whispered in Christine's ear. "It's okay. It's over now."

* * *

It was a little before noon as local sculptor, Milo Corbin chiseled away at his latest creation, a marble statue of a beautiful longhaired woman as if in the middle of a dance. The piece was the final component of the fifty-four-year-old artist's grand work that he called the Twelve Goddesses of Dance. Each statue was of the same female figure posed in the different step of a graceful dance. When Milo finally chiseled away the last unneeded pieces of stone, he stepped back to take a look at his creation. It was absolute perfection.

Milo looked towards the back of his studio at the other eleven statues that were part of the series. It had been a long road with a few mistakes along the way, but at long last the artist had finished his life's work. Milo put down his sculpting tools and went over to an old barrel that had a wicker picnic basket set on top. Inside the basket was a special bottle of wine he had been saving just for that moment. Milo poured himself a glass, raised it to his finished piece, and sipped. He felt the sweet satisfaction that every artist feels after finally finishing a long project.

"That really is a well-crafted piece of artwork you've made." A cheerful child-like voice suddenly commented in Milo's head. The bald sculptor looked to his right and saw Jirachi floating beside him.

"Who… what are you?" Milo asked.

"I'm Jirachi." The Pokemon answered. "I saw you working on that statue and became curious. You really did a good job."

"Why thank you, my little friend." Milo replied as a look of pride came to his face. "It took years of blood and sweat to carve my Twelve Dancers. These statues are my dream, my gift to the world."

"So are you saying that your life is now fulfilled?" Jirachi asked. "You have no other wishes or dreams you would like to have made real?"

Milo let out a slight chuckle. "I suppose I do have one small wish, strange though it may be. I wish that my Twelve Dancers could come to life."

"So be it." Jirachi replied.

Suddenly the room became filled with a strange silvery light. When the light faded, the eyes of the statue Milo had just finished began to glow red. Suddenly the statue moved and broke free of her base. The other eleven female statues at the back of the studio came to life as well. All twelve of the statues began to walk towards Milo.

"What… what is this?" a stunned Milo asked.

"You wished for your statues to come to life." Jirachi pointed out. "Now they are alive."

Suddenly the statue that Milo had just finished picked him up by the collar of his shirt and lifted him off the ground. The statue then threw Milo past Jirachi into the wall of his studio. Soon after, all twelve of the statues broke through the far wall and headed into town. After a few moments, Milo got back to his feet, totally shocked at what was happening.

"Seems these statues are a bit aggressive." Jirachi observed.

"This… this not what I wanted!" Milo told the Pokemon. "This is not what I meant when I wished for my Twelve Dancers to come to life!"

"Really? Then you should've been more specific with your wish then." Jirachi told him. "It would've been helpful if you said you wanted them to be sentient or flesh and blood, or at least have said you wanted them to perform a specific task."

Milo put his hand to his forehead. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Not my problem." Jirachi told him. "Well, goodbye!"

With that, Jirachi flew off into the sky. Milo stood there for several moments trying to figure out what to do. Eventually he ran off into town in the hopes of somehow preventing his living masterpieces from hurting anyone… or perhaps worse, getting broken by someone.

* * *

Quinton, Ross, Skins and Lorain had all once again gathered in the hotel lounge. After waiting for about twenty minutes, Bolt finally entered the room with a scowl on his face.

"Dude, you okay?" Skins asked.

"I'm fine." Bolt answered flatly.

"You sure man? You seem kinda ticked." Ross observed.

"It's not something I wanna talk about right now." Bolt told all of them. "Now Quinton, did you find out anything about that Jirachi?"

"Well… the good news is that if we do nothing, this problem with Jirachi should simply solve itself." Quinton revealed. "According to most of the common legends about this Pokemon, Jirachi is only awake for a week at a time. When that week ends, Jirachi goes back to sleep for another thousand years. Of course all of this is only theoretical. The fact is Jirachi is pretty much a myth because practically nobody alive today has seen one in the flesh… that is until now. Still, if we wait for about six more days, this thing should just blow over."

"So what's the bad news?" Lorain asked.

"The bad news… all the local legends about the Jirachi of Stardust Falls say that it's a total psycho." Quinton answered. "A lot of the stories that Ross and I read are pretty much just fables and folktales, but those types of stories usually have a basis in fact. One of the stories is about a man who travels all the way from another village to make a wish to the Jirachi of what would later become Stardust Falls. The man wished that he were the richest man in his village. Jirachi granted his wish, but when the man returned home he found out that every man in his village that had more money than he did had suddenly died. The man's wish had been granted, just not in the way he had intended."

"There are a lot of other stories like that one in these books." Ross added. "Some of them are even more twisted. It's like this Jirachi is a character out of some horror novel."

"What I don't understand is how any Pokemon could be that psychotic." Lorain remarked.

"It could be that because Jirachi spend so much of their lives asleep, they don't develop a proper sense of right and wrong." Quinton theorized. "It's either that, or this particular Jirachi is just abnormal."

Bolt walked to one of the windows of the lounge to look outside. "…If this Jirachi really is nuts, we need to find it and lock it up somehow until it falls asleep again. I mean, look at what happened with Christine! If other people run into this Jirachi and make what seems like a harmless wish to it, a whole lot of other people could get hurt."

"But where the heck do we even start to look?" Quinton asked.

Suddenly the group heard a scream coming from outside.

"My guess is that my be a clue." Ross assumed.

The gang rushed out of the hotel to find Milo's twelve living sculptures randomly attacking the townspeople. One of them had picked up a mailbox by the sidewalk and flung it towards a nearby house, breaking one of the second story windows. Another one had picked up a parked car and flew it at a young couple that had made the unfortunate mistake of walking onto the scene. The couple managed to run out of the way in time to avoid getting hit. The car ended up toppling onto its roof.

"What the hell…?" Ross exclaimed. "Are those… statues?"

"Well, they don't look like any kind of Pokemon I've ever seen." Lorain responded.

Suddenly one of the living statues grabbed a young woman by the next and picked her up off the ground. The woman tried to scream and hit the statue's wrist in a vain attempt to break free of her grasp.

"Let's rock, Raikou!" Bolt called as he quickly threw out a pokeball. Raikou burst out of the thrown ball with a roar. "Use Extrasensory on that statue!"

Raikou's eyes glowed and a second later a beam of golden light shot from the crest on its forehead. The statue was hit in the torso and shattered to pieces. The young woman that the statue had attacked ran away as soon as she was freed from its grip. Meanwhile, two of the other statues were chasing after a pair of children.

"I don't think so!" Ross declared as he took out a pokeball. "Go Machamp!"

The creature that burst from Ross' pokeball was a muscular light-grey humanoid with four powerful arms. It had three darker grey ridges on the top of its head like hair, and around its mouth it had a tan muzzle. The humanoid Pokemon wore a pair of black shorts with an ornate gold championship belt like the kind worn by boxers or wrestlers.

"Take out those statues with Seismic Toss!" Ross commanded.

Machamp ran at one of the two statues chasing after the kids. In seconds, the four-armed Pokemon picked on of the statues up, turned her horizontally, spun around three times and flung her into the other statue. Both statues shattered apart upon hitting each other. Meanwhile the remaining nine statues were still wreaking havoc.

"I'll help out too!" Lorain decided. "Go Beedrill!"

Flying out of Lorain's thrown pokeball was a large bee or wasp-like insect with two large red eyes and a pair of large wings on its back. The bug's arms and legs were very slender, and its arms ended with two large silvery lances. On the front of the insect's chest was a round yellow and grey stone held in place by black leather straps.

"Okay Beedrill! Use Poison Jab!" Lorain commanded.

Suddenly the stone fitted into Lorain's bracelet began to glow with a brilliant light. In the same instant, the stone on Beedrill's chest began to glow as well, and in seconds the insect's whole body gave off a yellow light and changed shape. When the light faded, Beedrill had taken on a larger and more mechanical appearance. His red eyes had become longer and sleeker, and his antenna pointed towards the back of his head. The lances on his arms had grown longer, and his legs ended with a smaller pair of lances that bore yellow and black stripes up towards the knee. Beedrill's abdomen had grown larger and had a pair of grooves that his legs could fit into. Once Beedrill's transformation had finished, a multicolored light in the form of a DNA helix momentarily appeared above his head.

Beedrill tucked his legs into the grooves on his abdomen and flew towards three of the statues, which had happened to line up in a straight path as they continued their random destruction of property. As Beedrill flew, the stinger on the end of his abdomen began to glow with a purple light. The wasp Pokemon's stinger hit all three statues in a single pass, causing them to shatter apart.

"So Lorain. Looks like you found the stone needed for your Beedrill to Mega Evolve." Quinton observed.

"You know about Mega Evolution too?" Lorain asked.

"We saw it in action a little while back when we were playing a gig in Kalos." Quinton revealed. "In fact, Skins and I have a little first-hand experience. Go Chrome!"

Bursting out of the pokeball that Quinton threw was a large silver metallic creature with a saucer-like body with four long legs. On the front of its body were two red eyes and a large gold X. Its legs were thicker and longer towards the bottom and tipped with golden claws. Around the metal creature's front right leg was an ornate metal band with a spherical blue gemstone embedded in it.

"So your Metang evolved into Metagross!" Lorain observed. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"This shouldn't surprise you either then. Chrome! Take out some of those statues with Meteor Mash!" Quinton ordered.

The stone embedded in Quinton's bracelet began to glow, and in the same instant the stone on Chrome's leg began to glow as well before its entire body gave off a dazzling explosion of blue light. In moments the light faded and Chrome had taken on a new form. It now floated in the air and its legs had moved on its body so that they pointed forward. The end of each leg had gained three large golden claws. Its back end had gained additional limbs that resembled thrusters, making the metal Pokemon look like some kind of spacecraft. The gold X on the front of its face had turned blue and had gained points on the ends. A multicolored light in the form of a DNA strand glowed briefly above Chrome before suddenly vanishing.

Chrome flew at full speed towards two more of the statues. The statues responded in kind by running towards Chrome in an attempt to fight back. As Chrome flew, its claws began to glow and its body began to give off a mist-like multicolored aura. The spaceship Pokemon rammed its claws into both statues, shattering them into debris.

"Go Aerodactyl!" Skins called with the throw of a pokeball.

Flying out of Skins' ball with a shriek was a large wyvern-like Pokemon with stone-grey skin and great wings that were purple on the inside. It had a large jaw and its mouth was filled with sharp fangs. Around its neck was a black spiked metal collar with a purple stone fitted into the front.

"Use Sky Drop!" Skins commanded.

The stone fitted into Skins' bracelet began to glow, as did the stone in Aerodactyl's collar. The wyvern's body suddenly gave off a brilliant purple light and changed shape. When the light faded, Aerodactyl had become larger and his body had a deeper stone-grey color. His horns had turned black and he had gained black stone-like armor on the brows of his eyes. A single black stone spike jutted out from his chin, and a large black spike grew from the top of his back. The front of each of Aerodactyl's wings had each gained five similar black spikes, and three black spines grew from the wyvern's tail towards the front. Three black markings adorned Aerodactyl's chest. As the wyvern's transformation finished, a multicolored light in the form of a DNA helix appeared briefly above his head.

Aerodactyl flew down and scooped up one of the statues with his massive talons. Seconds later, the wyvern dropped the statue on one of its comrades, causing both of them to shatter apart. The two statues that were left standing began to run as if in fear for their lives.

"Raikou! Finish those statues off with Thunder!" Bolt commanded.

Raikou roared and shot a bolt of lightning from the cloud on its back into the air. The sky darkened with thick black clouds, and a few seconds later a massive bolt of lightning came down and struck the fleeing statues. The force of the attack was so great that both statues shattered to pieces. The sky quickly returned to normal, and Aerodactyl, Chrome and Beedrill all returned to their original forms. At that moment, Milo arrived on the scene from behind Bolt and the others, crying out in utter despair as he fell to his knees.

"What have you done?" Milo called. "My creations! My life's work… ruined!"

"Dude! You made those things?" Ross asked.

"Yes, but… I never intended anything like this to happen!" Milo told them. "Oh! Why did I ever make that damned wish?"

"A wish?" Bolt repeated. "Was this wish to a Pokemon called Jirachi?"

Milo nodded. "He flew into my studio. We talked for a few moments about my work… and then he asked me if I had anything at all that I wished for. For some reason, I wished that my statues would come to life… maybe because I thought of them as my children. I never had a family of my own, you see. But I never wanted anything like this! My god! All those years… wasted!"

"Well Bolt, it looks like you were right about Jirachi." Quinton observed. "If we don't find and contain that Pokemon for the duration of the week somebody might end up making a wish that we'll all regret."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I hope the battle scene I did for this chapter was okay. I have to admit that I kinda had fun writing that particular scene since it wasn't just a typical Pokemon battle. It also gave me a chance to show off a few Mega Evolutions. I confess that half the reason I originally came up with the Lorain character because I wanted someone that could use Mega Beedrill in a later story.

On a different note, I'm wondering if I should change the genre of this story from Romance/Supernatural to Romance/Horror. After all, Ross did say in this chapter that our story's Jirahci is like something out of a horror novel.

Please review and let me know what you think.


	4. The Accountant's Grudge

**Author's Note:** I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed and gave their advice on whether or not I should change the genre of this story. Because of your feedback, I've decided to keep the genre of this story as Romance/Supernatural for the time being. To be honest, I don't see those genres changing anytime soon, since I guess I never really saw this as a horror story. It's nice to know that I was right to go with my first instincts.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokemon.

* * *

Chapter 4: The Accountant's Grudge

Christine had somehow managed to relax considerably after Bolt had dropped her off in his hotel room earlier that day. There was just something about the room that felt so much safer than the cold unfeeling hospital room she had spent the previous night in. Christine had not seen much of Bolt since he had dropped her off. She did know about the battle with the living statues, as it had happened right outside the building. After the battle though, Bolt had come back just to check on her and get a couple of thing before leaving with his band to rehearse for the upcoming concert they were performing in.

Night had eventually fallen, and Christine was in bed watching footage of the statue incident on the news. Bolt at that moment was in the bathroom getting ready to turn in for the night as well. When the news finished its story about the living statues, Christine turned off the T.V. and Bolt at that moment walked out wearing a yellow t-shirt and a pair of black shorts.

"They showed your face on T.V. just a second ago." Christine informed him.

"I'm sure." Bolt replied. "That Jirachi is pretty dangerous if it can do stuff like bring statues to life."

"Do you know how that sculptor's doing?" Christine asked. "The you told me about?"

"You mean the guy who made those statues? Last I saw him, he was pretty broken up about what happened." Bolt answered. "Can blame him, since we pretty much demolished his life's work. The poor dude's probably drowning his sorrows in a bar somewhere."

"I feel really bad for him." Christine replied. "I'm sure he never intended anything like this to happen."

"Just like you never meant for your dad to get killed." Bolt added. "Like I told before, that Jirachi is the one to blame for your dad's death, just like it's to blame for those statues coming to life and going nuts."

Christine sighed. "I get what you're saying, but… I can't deny that if I never made that wish, my father and all those people would still be alive."

Bolt sat on the edge of the bed and took Christine's hand. "I get what you're feeling, but… what's done is done. It's horrible, but you're not the one to blame for what one psycho Pokemon did. Stop beating yourself up over it, okay?"

Christine managed a weak smile. "I'll try."

Bolt kissed the back of her hand and stood back up. "I think I'll go ahead and turn in for the night. You can use the bed. I'll just use that couch over there in the corner. It doesn't look too uncomfortable."

"Bolt, wait." Christine told him as she grabbed his wrist. "You… don't have to do that. This bed is big enough for both of us. And besides… I think I'd sleep better right now if you were with me."

Bolt's face turned bright red. "Uh… I don't know…"

"Bolt… please." Christine begged. "I really need you right now."

Bolt couldn't resist the pouting look on Christine's face. "Well… okay. If that's what you want."

With that, Bolt turned off the lights in the room and got into bed with Christine. The brown-haired woman immediately cuddled up next to him. Christine was out like a light in a matter of moments. Bolt on the other hand was having a much harder time falling asleep. A part of him couldn't help but feel like he was taking advantage of Christine somehow, plus the feeling of Christine's body pressed up against his had made his shorts feel uncomfortably tight. Even so, Bolt couldn't deny that he was happy to have Christine lying beside him. After finally managing to push away his lustful thoughts, Bolt finally drifted off to sleep.

* * *

It was morning as Lorain headed into the hotel lounge for a quick breakfast. When she arrived, Lorain saw Christine sitting at one of the tables and eating a plate of toast with some coffee. Lorain's anger flared up upon seeing the girl who years ago had broken Bolt's heart. After calming herself down, the blunette decided to go over and have a small word with Christine.

Lorain walked up to Christine's table. "Hello Christine."

Christine looked up from her plate. "Um, hi. Do I know you?"

"It's me. Lorain Verdant." The blunette answered. "I used to travel with Bolt and the others back in Kanto, remember?"

Christine's eyes widened, as she looked Lorain over. "Wow! You sure have blossomed since the last time I saw you."

"The guys didn't recognize me either when I showed up here." Lorain admitted. "Of course it had been ten years since they last saw me. Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all." Christine answered.

Lorain pulled out the chair across from Christine and sat down. "So… what're you going to do now that your wedding's been pretty much canceled?"

"Well… if Bolt will have me, I'd like to just go on traveling with him." Christine answered. "I mean that was my plan originally before everything that happened in Viridian City."

"…Are you freaking kidding me?" Lorain asked, anger showing in her voice. "You think that after everything that happened, after the way you just tore out Bolt's heart and stomped on it, you think you two can just pick up where you left off?"

"I'm not saying that!" Christine told her. "But… the fact is I never stopped loving Bolt. And after everything that's just happened, I feel like I need to be with him now more than ever. I know that getting past what happened ten years ago will be hard, but I think that Bolt and I still have a chance."

Lorain rose from her chair. "You're the worst thing that ever happened to Bolt. If you really love him like you say you do, you'll stay the hell away from him."

With that, Lorain stormed out of the room. Her appetite for breakfast had completely vanished.

* * *

It was just before lunch hour as thirty-four-year-old Archie Frankel stormed into the men's room of his office building. He immediately went to the sink to wash out his tie. One of his coworkers had played a prank on him by giving him a can of soda from the vending machine that had been shaken up. Of course this was not the first time that something like this had happened to Archie, because the reality he had two jobs at his company. Officially, Archie was part of the company's team of accountants. Unofficially, he was the designated butt of every office practical joke.

Every day, at least one of Archie's coworkers would pull some sort of prank on him, and every time Archie would somehow fall for it. That was how things had been since Archie had started working at the company seven years before, and he wasn't really surprised that things had turned out that way. Looking at himself in the mirror, Archie could easily see why somebody would routinely pick on him. Archie was scrawny, had pasty white skin, his red hair had already started to recede, and he wore a pair of thick glasses that had been out of style since the fifties. In short, Archie was what many would consider to be a geek.

Of course that was how things had always been for Archie. In school, Archie was that one kid who all the bullies would pick on and who all the kids would laugh at whenever he tripped or ended up saying something stupid when the teacher would call on him in class; the one kid that everyone else would pick on just so they could feel superior for at least a little while. It certainly didn't help that Archie also had an overprotective and overbearing mother, a mother who he still shared an apartment with. No matter what Archie did, it just seemed to be his fate to be the one person in life who everybody else picked on. And he was really starting to get tired of it.

Archie was at least glad that he hadn't ended up like his former coworker, Gloria Finch. The police still didn't know how Gloria had managed to steal all that money from the Stardust Falls bank, but it was clear that she was going to be wearing an orange jumpsuit for a pretty long time. Still, Archie was beyond fed up with being everyone's punching bag. Getting soda sprayed onto his favorite tie was the last straw. Archie began grumbling to himself as he continued to scrub his tie.

"Hi there!" a cheerful child-like voice spoke in Archie's head.

Archie turned around and saw Jirachi floating behind him. The little Pokemon had apparently flown in through the open restroom window.

"What sort of Pokemon are you?" Archie answered.

"I'm Jirachi!" the wish granter answered in the same cheerful tone. "I was flying by and noticed that you seemed to be… what's the word I'm looking for? Angry, I think. I'm not all that good at distinguishing human emotions, so I hope you'll forgive me if I made an incorrect observation."

"You bet I'm angry!" Archie confirmed. "I'm sick and tied of everyone just walking all over me! Every day I have to put up with their stupid jokes and I've had enough of it! Now one of their pranks has ruined my best tie! It's the only tie that's ever really looked good on me."

"So what you're saying is that others of your kind take advantage of you." Jirachi observed. "That they view you as inferior."

"You got that right, buster!" Archie replied as he went back to scrubbing out his tie. "You know what I wish right now? I wish that I could use attacks like a Fire Pokemon so that I could teach everyone a lesson!"

"Done!" Jirachi replied.

Suddenly the room was bathed in an odd silvery light. A second later, Archie felt a strange warmth coursing throughout his entire body. Soon the light faded, but the feeling that Archie had remained.

"There! Now you have the ability to use almost every fire-type Pokemon attack." Jirachi told him. "Go ahead! Try using a Fire Punch."

Archie looked at his right hand and clenched it into a fist. Suddenly his fist was enveloped in red flames, but the fire didn't hurt at all. After a moment, Archie slammed his fist into the mirror. The fire then died out, but the mirror had been completely shattered.

"This is… incredible!" Archie declared.

"Glad I could help. Bye!" Jirachi replied. And with that, he flew back out the open window.

Archie clenched his fist again and the fire reignited. A mad grin then formed on the accountant's face. He decided that it was high time for the meek to inherit the earth.

* * *

Quinton was sitting on the bed in his hotel room typing on his laptop, papers spread out all around him. He was working on a rock musical he had been writing for the last two years during his spare time. On the nightstand was a police scanner he had set up the night before. The blonde thought the scanner would be the gang's best bet at locating Jirachi. As Quinton stopped typing to write something on one of the papers he had spread out, there was a knock at his door.

"It's open!" Quinton called.

The door opened and Bolt walked into the room. "Hey man. You got a few minutes? I feel like I need to talk to someone."

"No problem." Quinton replied as he shut his laptop. "So… I think I can guess what it is you want to talk about, or I guess I should say who."

"Yeah, it's about Christine." Bolt confirmed as he walked over to the window. "I think I'm still in love with her. Even after what she did back in Viridian… my feelings for her are still the same."

"You're absolutely sure about that?" Quinton asked.

"Totally man. And you know how I know? Because it's been tearing out my guts to see Christine in pain like she had been these past couple of days." Bolt replied. "Tell me something Quinton, do you think Christine and I should get back together?"

"Well… there's not much standing in the way of you two becoming a couple again." Quinton pointed out. "Derik Wyler is dead, and so is Richter from the sound of it. Of course, the question that should really be asked is, do you think you and Christine should get back together?"

Bolt turned to face Quinton and sighed. "I guess… a part of me is afraid to start something with Christine because I'm afraid of getting hurt again. I mean you know how long it took me to get over what happened ten years ago."

"I get that, Bolt. But here's the thing, we always run the risk of getting hurt when getting into a relationship like that." Quinton pointed out. "I don't think I need to quote you the old line about it being better to have loved and lost. Besides, you and Christine just seem to make a good pair. So if you really want my advice, I say go for it."

"Thanks man." Bolt told him.

 _"Calling all units! Calling all units!"_ suddenly came a voice over the police scanner. _"We have a dangerous man attacking people at the office building at the corner of Oak and Juniper! Suspect is breathing fire! Repeat, suspect is breathing fire! All available units report to Oak and Juniper immediately!"_

"You think Jirachi might have something to do with this?" Bolt asked.

"Well, a guy breathing fire isn't exactly normal." Quinton pointed out. "We should get the others and check it out."

"Good idea." Bolt agreed. "We need to end this once and for all!"

* * *

Bolt and the rest of his band plus Lorain soon arrived at the scene of Archie's rampage. The office building he worked at had been set ablaze and fireman were busy trying to put it out. In the meantime, the police had cornered Archie, who had since lost his shirt, jacket and shoes. The aqua-haired female police officer that was the town's local Officer Jenny was speaking to Archie through a megaphone in an attempt to negotiate with him. The super-powered accountant merely delivered a roundhouse kick to a parked car as his bare foot suddenly became covered in flames. The resulting kick caused the car to burst into flames as it hurled through the air towards Officer Jenny and some of her men. Fortunately the police officers managed to duck out of the way.

"That… that looked like a Blaze Kick attack!" a totally stunned Quinton spoke.

"So this guy can use Fire Pokemon attacks?" Ross realized.

"I guess this means that a lot of my Pokemon are pretty much useless in this situation." Lorain realized.

Bolt pulled out Raikou's pokeball. "Let's rock, Raikou!"

The tiger of thunder burst out of the thrown ball with a roar. The appearance of such a Legendary Pokemon instantly caught Archie's attention.

"Well, looks like it's my day to encounter Pokemon that are only seen in fairytales." Archie observed. "First the Jirachi that granted me this power, and now this."

"Just stand down, dude!" Bolt told the accountant. "Why you even doing this anyway?"

"To show everyone that I can't be pushed around anymore!" Archie answered. "People everywhere are gonna learn that they can't walk all over Archie Mortimer Frankel!"

"Nobody's gonna walk all over you man." Bolt told him. "Now let's just calm down so we can talk about this. I really don't want to have to hurt ya."

"Yeah? Well maybe I want to hurt you!" Archie shot back. "Eat my Flamethrower attack!"

"Raikou! Block it with Thunderbolt!" Bolt commanded.

Archie spewed out a stream of red flames at Bolt and Raikou. The electric tiger shot a bolt of yellow electricity at the head of the attack, resulting in a small explosion.

"Damn! We can't just attack this guy! He may be able to use Fire attacks, but he's still human!" Quinton pointed out. "The attacks from our Pokemon could seriously hurt him."

"But if we don't do something, he could burn down the whole town!" Lorain pointed out.

"Dammit!" Ross cursed. "I wish this guy couldn't use Fire Pokemon attacks!"

Suddenly Jirachi popped out from behind a nearby car. "I heard that! Your wish shall be granted!"

Suddenly the area was bathed in a silvery light and Archie's body gave off a feint red aura that seemed to shatter. After the light faded, Archie opened his mouth to breath out another stream of flames but nothing came out. The accountant then tried to kick another car with a Blaze Kick attack but all he accomplished was seriously hurt his own foot. Realizing that Archie had lost his power, Officer Jenny ordered her men to pile on the accountant. Within mere moments, Archie was in handcuffs.

"Hey!" Bolt called to Jirachi, getting the little Pokemon's attention. "You the reason why that guy could use Pokemon attacks?"

"Why yes. I gave those powers to him because that's what he wished for." Jirachi answered. "Just as easily took them away because that other human wished that he didn't have those powers just now."

"Why the hell are you doing all this?" Bolt asked. "Granting all these wishes?"

"Because I find it fascinating." Jirachi answered simply. "The things that you humans wish for are interesting, as are the responses to those wishes. Take what happened just now, for instance. That man I granted those powers to seemed… what's the proper term? Overjoyed at having those powers bestowed upon him, but everyone else had a contradictory reaction."

"Don't you give a damn about the ones who get hurt because of these random wishes?" Bolt asked. "Because of you, a bunch of people died and someone I care about became a total wreck because of it!"

"Am I supposed to be concerned about that?" Jirachi asked.

"Man… you are one psycho Pokemon, you know that?" Bolt declared. "And I'm not gonna let you keep screwing with people's lives like this!"

"As if you can stop me." Jirachi responded. "Flash attack!"

Suddenly the eye on Jirachi's chest opened and gave off a blinding flash of silver light that forced Bolt and the others to shield their eyes. When the light faded, Jirachi was nowhere to be seen.

"That's one screwed-up Pokemon." Skins declared.

"No kidding!" Ross agreed. "This is all just one big game to him!"

"So what do we do now?" Quinton asked.

"No clue." Bolt answered. "But I get the feeling that things are gonna get a lot worse."

* * *

Richter awoke in a dark room in what appeared to be a hospital bed. His head throbbed as he tried to sit up. The last thing Richter remembered was walking outside the Wyler villa for some air after he had beaten Christine. The next thing he knew, the villa suddenly exploded and the shockwave knocked him to the ground. After that his head hit something, probably a rock, and he was out cold.

As Richter tried to piece together what had happened, the door to the room suddenly opened. Walking in was a woman with long orange hair that was split in the back like a V. She had on a black blazer over a white shirt with a black necktie, and a short black skirt and a pair of black high-heeled shoes. On the front right pocket of the blazer was a red letter R. Following close behind the woman was a man with green hair that was split at the front, wearing a black suit that also had a red letter R on the front jacket pocket.

"Good. You're finally awake, Mr. Chase." The redhead spoke. "We were starting to worry that you had fallen into a coma. You did get a nasty blow to the head, after all."

"Who are you people?" Richter asked. "And what do you want?"

"I'm Cassidy." The redhead answered.

"And I'm Butch." The green-haired man added.

"As for what we want, we'd like you to be the leader of the new Team Rocket." Cassidy revealed. "Interested?"

* * *

Please review and let me know what you think.


	5. A Wish in Anger

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokemon.

* * *

Chapter 5: A Wish in Anger

"You want me to be the new leader of Team Rocket, eh?" Richter asked Cassidy and Butch. "And just what faction would I be leading? Last I heard, Team Rocket fell apart after Giovanni was arrested in Lilycove City several months ago. All of his top lieutenants have been battling for control ever since."

"My partner and I don't represent any of the current factions, but a new one." Cassidy revealed. "One that can unite all the other factions together into a new and stronger Team Rocket. All it would take is your leadership."

"But why me?" Richter asked. "Why not just try and unite the team all on your own."

"Well… ya see…" Butch began as he rubbed the back of his head. "We kinda got kicked outta Team Rocket about ten years ago."

"It wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for that one trainer we kept running into." Cassidy added. "Because of that damn rock star, Bolt Hanson, our reputations in Team Rocket were ruined! We were two of the organization's most elite agents before he came along!"

Richter suddenly chuckled. "So… Hanson is the one to blame for your disgrace. He was a thorn in my side once too. Still is, really. Since you managed to gain my sympathy, go ahead and tell me the rest of your proposal."

"Alright. The bottom line is that my partner and I don't like what Team Rocket has become, but as it is we can't do anything to change it." Cassidy explained. "But there's a good chance that you can. Your family has deep connections with Team Rocket. If someone like you were to step up and take the leadership, the other faction leaders would fall behind you."

"I see… and I'm guessing that all the two of you want is to be my top lieutenants, right?" Richter deduced. "Okay. I accept your little offer. Things haven't been going as smoothly for my family since Team Rocket fell out of power. Just answer me one question though, what happened to the Wyler villa where I was staying?"

"Well… I'm afraid that the villa is now just a pile of charcoal." Butch reported. "Derik Wyler, his wife, and all the house staff are dead."

"And what about Derik Wyler's daughter, Christine?" Richter asked, anger starting to show in his voice. "Where's the girl I was supposed to marry?"

"She's alive, but… we have no clue where she is." Cassidy answered.

Richter slammed the side of his fist into the rail on the side of the bed. "Let this by my first executive order as your leader! I want all available resources put towards finding Christine and bringing her to me! I also want to know exactly how the villa exploded like that!"

"Of course, sir. But there's something else you should know." Cassidy told him. "The Legendary Pokemon known as Jirachi has been sighted all over Stardust Falls for the past few days. If we could capture a Pokemon like that, it would go a long way towards cementing your position as leader of Team Rocket."

"Plus, Jirachi is said to be able to grant wishes." Butch added. "If we caught it, we could wish for just about anything we wanted."

Richter sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You make a good point. Okay, I want the capture of Jirachi to be our number one priority. But all our other resources are to go towards finding Christine, is that understood?"

"Yes sir!" Cassidy and Butch said together as they saluted. Soon after, the duo left the room.

"Your father's death changes nothing, Christine." Richter spoke. "You're still mine, and nothing is ever going to change that."

* * *

Two days went by since the incident with Archie, and the town of Stardust Falls had been relatively calm. There had been no signs of Jirachi, though Bolt and the others had been keeping their eyes out for strange incidents in the news and they could see that Jirachi had been busy. The day before there had been an incident where a man had wished for his brother-in-law's sport's car would blow up, and a second later it had spontaneously exploded. Had the man's brother-in-law actually been in the car at the time, there would've been a fatality. There had been other similar incidents occurring all over the town, yet no actual sightings of Jirachi. It seemed to Bolt and the others that Jirachi had been laying low. Of course it was only a matter of time before Jirachi would grant a wish that would have more disastrous consequences.

Meanwhile, Christine was calmly sitting on a white bench in the small park behind the hotel. She had been coming out to that spot to think ever since she had arrived at the hotel. Before long, Bolt came out of the hotel and sat next to her on the bench.

"How ya doing?" Bolt asked.

"Okay." Christine answered. "I can't wait to get rid of these crutches. Any sign of Jirachi?"

"Nah. The little bastard's doing a good job of hiding." Bolt answered. "So… you still beating yourself up over what happened with your dad?"

"I keep telling myself that you're right, that there's no way I could've know that Jirachi was going to grant my wish that way." Christine replied. "Still, if I hadn't woken Jirachi up in the first place… I guess this is just something I'm going to have to learn to live with."

"I'll try and help you any way I can." Bolt told her as he took her hand.

"Bolt… there is something else that I've been feeling guilty about." Christine revealed. "I've never forgiven myself for leaving you ten years ago. And here you are again, taking care of me even after what I did."

"Yeah, well… the truth is Chirstine," Bolt began as he took off his trademark sunglasses and looked her in the eye, "I guess I've never stopped loving you."

Christine smiled as tears began to roll down her cheeks. As they gazed into one another's eyes, they had become locked in a deep passionate kiss before they had realized it. Meanwhile, Lorain had been watching Bolt and Christine from behind a tree the whole time.

* * *

It was later in the afternoon as Lorain headed back outside to the park. She found Christine out hobbling around her crutches and getting some fresh air. Lorain immediately stormed over and got in Christine's path.

"Oh! Hello Lorain." Christine spoke upon seeing the blunette. "I haven't seen you since that talk we had the other day."

"I thought I told you to stay the hell away from Bolt!" Lorain reminded her.

"Whether or not I spend my time with Bolt isn't any of your business." Christine told her. "Besides, Bolt really seems to want me around."

"Yeah, well that's because he doesn't know you the way I do!" Lorain retorted. "You're a selfish bitch, you know that? I told you to just stay away from Bolt so that he wouldn't get hurt again! And here you are trying to pick up where the two of you left off!"

"That's not what we're doing at all!" Christine told her. "I know that Bolt and I just can't go on like what happened in Viridian City never happened, but the fact is that Bolt and I still have strong feelings for each other and we both want to explore them. Lorain, I get that you're worried about Bolt… but you don't have the right to tell either of us that we can't see each other."

"Dammit!" Lorain cursed as she clenched her fists at her sides. "I wish… I wish that a small meteor would just fall down from the sky and hit you!"

Suddenly the bush that Christine and Lorain were standing next to rustled and Jirachi popped out. "I heard that! Consider your wish granted!"

The eye on Jirachi's chest opened and the area was bathed in a silvery light. When the light faded, Christine and Lorain looked up to see a blue ball of light in the sky. The ball of light got bigger and bigger as it fell closer towards them, and it soon became clear that it was going to hit right where Christine was standing. Christine and Lorain remained standing where they were, completely frozen in horror.

"Raikou! Blast that thing out of the sky with Hyper Beam!" Bolt's voice suddenly cut in.

Raikou jumped forward next to Christine and fired a beam of golden light into the sky up at the meteor. The attack struck the front of the falling space rock, but only caused a few cracks to form. At the same time, Christine looked back and saw Bolt and the rest of the gang standing behind her.

"Damn! It wasn't enough!" Bolt observed. "And it'll take a bit before Raikou can launch another attack!"

"Let me handle this!" Quinton told him as he pulled out a pokeball. "Go Chrome!"

Quinton's silver Metagross burst out of the thrown ball, its body giving off a sparkling flash as it emerged.

"Okay Chrome! Break that thing apart with Meteor Mash!" Quinton ordered.

At that moment, the stone in Quinton's bracelet flashed along with the stone attached to Chrome's leg. In seconds, Chrome's body gave off a dazzling light before changing into its starship-like mega form. The silver Pokemon then took off into the air towards the meteor at full speed. As Chrome came in range of the meteor, its body became shrouded in a multicolored mist. A few seconds later, Chrome's golden claws struck the meteor, causing it to explode with a bright flash of light that washed out the entire sky.

When the light finally faded, the meteor had been almost completely destroyed, with only a few small harmless chunks falling towards the town. A few moments later, Chrome flew back to the ground and changed back into its original form.

"Damn! I have got to get me one of those Mega Stones!" Ross declared.

"How fascinating!" Jirachi declared. "You were able to overcome the power of your friend's wish. Though perhaps if she had wished for a more mundane demise for your other friend, the outcome might've been much different."

"You little son of a bitch!" Bolt cursed. "What the hell were you just trying to pull?"

"I was merely granting the wish of your friend there." Jirachi indifferently replied. "She was the one who wished for the meteor to fall."

"But I never… I didn't want…" Lorain spoke as she backed away in horror. "I didn't actually mean for anything like that to happen!"

"Really? It seemed clear that you wished to be rid of a romantic rival." Jirahci assumed. "Was I incorrect?"

"Well I… I mean…" Lorain began, but she couldn't get the rest of the words to come out of her mouth.

Jirachi flew closer to Lorain. "From your reaction, it would appear that my assumption is correct. Human emotions have always been a hard thing for me to understand, but past experience has taught me that humans will often wish for things they don't consciously mean, but still desire on a subconscious level. You wanted Ms. Christine out of the way so that you could have that man over there as a mate. Am I wrong?"

Lorain said nothing but simply burst into tears. The blunette then ran away sobbing before any of the others could stop her.

Ross slapped his fist into the palm of his left hand. "Okay ya little bastard! We're tired of you screwing with us! It's time we put your lights out!"

"I don't think so." Jirachi told him. "Flash attack!"

Jirachi quickly reopened the eye on his chest and the area was washed out in a blinding flash of silvery light. When the light faded and Bolt and the others uncovered their eyes, Jirachi had vanished without a trace.

"Damn!" Quinton cursed. "It got away again!"

"The little guy's harder to catch than Raikou!" Bolt remarked. "No offense, buddy."

Raikou merely growled in response and used his hind leg to scratch behind his left ear.

"I'm going to have to come up with some way to counter Jirachi's flash." Quinton realized as he held his chin. "Otherwise Jirachi is just going to keep getting away form us."

"What about Lorain?" Skins suddenly asked.

"Bolt, I think you need to go have a talk with Lorain." Christine told him. "I think Jirachi was right. What just happened isn't just because she's still mad at me for what happened ten years ago."

Bolt let out a heavy sigh. "Yeah, I think you're right. Man! This whole thing just keeps getting more and more messed up!"

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I apologize for this chapter being a little on the short side. It seemed a lot longer when I planned it out on the original outline.

Please review and let me know what you think.


	6. Hidden Feelings

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokemon.

* * *

Chapter 6: Hidden Feelings

Bolt had started searching all over town for Lorain after she had run out. It had become crystal clear that Jirachi was probably right to an extent; that Lorain's attitude towards Christine simply wasn't because of what Christine had done ten years ago in Viridian City. Bolt suddenly regretted the way he had hit on Lorain when she first showed up n town even more than ever. After what seemed like at least an hour, Bolt finally found Lorain by the town's iconic waterfalls where they had their little reunion. The blunette was still crying her eyes out.

"Hey there, Lorain." Bolt spoke, getting her attention. "Mind if you and I have a talk?"

"Go away!" Lorain told him. "I don't… I don't want you seeing me like this."

"C'mon. Don't be like that." Bolt spoke as he cautiously approached. "Now tell me what's wrong."

Lorain took a big gulp. "Jirachi was right. I do… have feelings for you, Bolt. I have for a long time. Then when Christine showed up again… I just couldn't bare the thought of you going back to her. But I didn't mean for Jirachi to try and kill Christine like that! You have to believe me!"

"I do." Bolt assured her as he came a little closer. "So… how long have you felt this way about me? I mean… was this like love or first sight or something?"

Lorain shook her head. "I didn't have these feelings for you in the beginning. At first I just thought you were really cool. You were this hotshot trainer who could take down a whole gang of bandits like nothing. You were kind of a hero to me. But I think the more time we traveled together my feelings for you started to grow. Then a few months after I went home to take care of my grandma and I heard one of your band's first songs on the radio… I think that's when I realized that I was in love with you. There was a sadness in that song that just touched my heart… and after I heard it I just wanted to take you in my arms to try and comfort you… to make your pain go away."

"That's probably one of the songs I wrote about when I lost Christine." Bolt recalled. "Hell, our first album was mostly break-up songs and power ballads."

"I kinda figured that's what the song was about." Lorain replied with a tearful smile. "Bolt… I have to know… could you ever feel about me the same way I feel about you?"

Bolt sighed. "I do care about you, Lorain. But… I've always seen you as the little sister I never had. I don't think I could ever care about you in any other way. Besides, now that Christine is back I'm pretty much committed to her."

"…I see." Lorain responded. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised. You know… part of me was pretty excited when you hit on me when I first ran into you and the guys here. Bolt… do you think that if I had looked back then the same way I look now… would things have been different between us?"

Bolt shook his head. "Looks aren't everything, Lorain. I mean if you were the bombshell that you are now back then, I probably would've hit on you, then you would've called me a jerk and told me to get lost. But then maybe after my band took off, you would've become my groupie and maybe ended up as one of the many girls I'd have a one-night stand with. I think the relationship that we do have is a hell of a lot better than that alternative."

"I guess you're right." Lorain admitted. "So… I guess I'll just have to settle for being your favorite little sister."

Bolt then pulled Lorain into a hug, after which Lorain broke into tears again. The two remained there by the falls holding each other until Lorain finally managed to calm down.

* * *

It was early evening as Richter walked the halls of the Team Rocket base with Butch and Cassidy walking a step behind. Richter was wearing new a dark-grey pinstripe suite with a black shirt and a red tie. A red letter R was sewn onto the front jacket pocket of the suit, indicating he was now the full-fledged leader of the new Team Rocket. The building that Cassidy and Butch's Team Rocket was using as a base was originally an old weather institute on the outskirts of Stardust Falls that was set up to study some of the odd weather patterns that formed around Mt. Coronet. The buildings existing laboratories had made it the perfect place for Team Rocket splinter group to make into a base.

Richter and his two lieutenants walked into the building's largest lab. Inside, several men and women were working at the various computer and lab stations around the spherical room. Standing in the middle of the room watching a large video screen mounted on the wall was a bald man in a white lab coat. He stood at a little over five feet and had on a pair of spectacles and had a small beard of red hair. A red letter R was embroidered onto the front pocket of his lab coat. The bald man turned around almost as soon as Richter and the others entered the room.

"Boss, this is our lead scientist, Dr. Werner Phylum." Cassidy informed Richter.

"It is an honor to finally meet you, Mr. Chase." Dr. Phylum spoke as he shook Richter's hand. "I was one of the chief scientists in the original Team Rocket. I believe that with someone like you leading us, we can bring our proud organization back to its former glory."

"My underlings told me that you've found a way to track down Jirachi." Richter responded.

"That I have, boss!" Dr. Phylum confirmed. "My people and I have been scanning this whole area since the sightings of Jirachi and news of these 'odd occurrences' began to surface. Through our continuous observations, we've detected various odd energy signatures that would coincide with each of these strange events. My theory is that Jirachi gives off this energy signature each time it grants a wish."

"And so you can use that signature to locate where Jirachi is." Richter realized.

"Correct!" Dr. Phylum confirmed. "We've isolated the exact energy signature of Jirachi's power. The moment Jirachi grants another wish, we should be able to pinpoint its exact location."

"We've already deployed several undercover teams over the entire area." Butch added. "The second Jirachi pops up on our the Dr.'s scanners, the nearest teams will move in to catch it."

"Inform me the moment Jirachi is located." Richter ordered.

"You will be the first to know, right me." Dr. Phylum assured him.

With that, Richter left the lab with Cassidy and Butch following close behind. The three of them walked the darkened halls of the base in silence for several moments before Richter suddenly stopped.

"Has there been any progress made in finding Christine Wyler?" Richter asked.

"Uh… well boss, I'm afraid that she's proving harder to find than Jirachi." Cassidy answered. "She was checked into a local hospital for a night after the villa exploded, but we haven't been able to find a trace of her since she checked out. She's not registered at any hotel in the area."

Richter turned around and was about to chew Cassidy out, but then he recalled the flying Christine had been looking at the night of the explosion. "…Find out what hotel that rock band, Raging Thunder is staying at. If I'm right, she's probably with them."

"Why would you think that, boss?" Butch asked.

"Just do as I tell you!" Richter snapped. "Now… I'm going to my new office to be alone for a while. Do not disturb me unless you have news about Jirachi or Christine."

"Yes boss!" Cassidy and Butch replied together as they saluted.

Richter stormed off down the halls of the base. In moments he had arrived in the large room that was his office. The walls of the room were mostly bare, but it had a large oak desk and the far wall behind the desk was a single large window that overlooked the forest beyond and the base of Mt. Coronet. Richter sat down in the large black leather chair behind his desk and turned around to face the window. After sitting in silence for a few moments, Richter pulled out a small folded picture that he kept in his pocket.

The picture was Richter and Christine when they were both seven years old. It was taken at the time when they had first met at some party that was held at the Wyler estate in Kanto. The fact was that Richter had been in love with Christine since the moment he first laid eyes on her that day. To Richter, Christine was the perfect girl, a jewel whose beauty was unsurpassed by any other girl in the world. Since that moment, Richter had always wanted to be near Christine… to possess her. So when Richter's father told him later that a marriage between him and Christine had been arranged, Richter was overjoyed.

"I will have you again, Christine." Richter spoke as he looked at the image of Christine in the picture. "You belong to me now and forever. I'm not going to let some low class rock star steal you from me. This time… I'll kill him if I have to."

* * *

It was still fairly early in the morning as Bolt and Christine headed down to the hotel lounge for some breakfast. When they arrived, they encountered Lorain right when she was walking out the door. The three of them exchanged a quick awkward greeted before Lorain quickly went on her way. Afterward, the couple continued into the lounge and sat down at the nearest table.

Bolt let out a heavy sigh. "Guess things between me and Lorain are gonna be pretty weird for a while, huh?"

"Give her some time, Bolt. She'll get over it." Christine assured him as she place her hand over his on the table.

"Yeah, I know." Bolt replied. "It's just… I think I'm probably the first guy she ever had a major crush on. That's a pretty hard thing to get over."

"Who was your first crush?" Christine asked.

"It was this one girl I met while I was first starting out as a trainer here in Sinnoh." Bolt answered. "She was like five years old than me. We ended up traveling together to this one city. I ended up falling for her pretty hard, and it wasn't because she was, you know… gorgeous. She was kinda like the way you are, actually; kind, compassionate. Then we reached the city we were going to and I found out she had a boyfriend who was waiting for her at the Pokemon Center. I was pretty down for a while after that."

"But you obviously got over it." Christine pointed out. "Just like Lorain will get over this."

"I'm sure you're right." Bolt replied. "So… since we're on the subject, who was your first crush?"

A small smile appeared on Christine's face. "When I was nine, my father had this chauffer who whose son lived with him in the servants' quarters. His son was named Alec and he was twelve. I made every little excuse to be around him."

"So what happened?" Bolt asked.

"Well, my father seemed to notice how friendly I was being with Alec and had his father fired." Christine answered. "I never saw Alec again after that. There were times when I'd wonder about what ever happened to him."

"Sorry. For a while I forgot how messed up your life used to be." Bolt responded.

"It's okay. After all, in the end we've were both able to find the person we love most." Christine replied.

Suddenly Quinton dashed into the room. "Guys! Jirachi just struck again, and in a big way!"

"What happened?" Bolt asked as he rose from his chair.

"Well… how shall I put this?" Quinton began. "We've got zombies! I don't know if some poor sucker wished for his long dead parents or grandparents to come back to life or what, but we've got two living corpses tearing up downtown right now!"

"Son of bitch!" Bolt exclaimed. "We better get going!"

"I'm coming with!" Christine decided. "I don't know how much of a help I'll be, but I'm tired of just sitting around while Jirachi continues to cause all this destruction."

"You sure about this?" Bolt asked.

"Trust me. I can handle myself." Christine assured him.

"Well… okay." Bolt finally agreed. "Let's get out there and put an end to this crap once and for all!"

* * *

Richter was sitting in his office quietly drinking a cup of coffee. Suddenly the door burst open and one of the scientists working for Dr. Phylum burst into the room.

"Boss! We've finally located Jirachi!" the scientist reported. "The squad being led by Commander Cassidy and her partner are on route as we speak!"

Richter rose from his chair. "I'll be going there as well. I want to see just how well you people operate with my own eyes."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Sorry for doing yet another fairly short chapter. In retrospect, I probably should've merged this chapter and the last one together. Anyway, I think I should take this moment to let everyone know that I probably won't have the next chapter up until next Wednesday or Friday. Let's just say that I'm planning a little trip at the moment.

Please review and let me know what you think.


	7. Richter Strikes Back

**Author's Note:** For those who may be interested, that little trip I mentioned at the end of the last chapter went well. Of course this trip was actually just a simple shopping trip to get some manga, so it's not like I was taking a vacation to the Alps or anything like that. Anyway, I hope this chapter is worth the wait.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokemon.

* * *

Chapter 7: Richter Strikes Back

With Christine still on crutches, she and Bolt were forced to ride Raikou to the site of Jirachi's latest bit of mischief. The couple soon arrived at a location just outside the gates of the town cemetery where they encountered a very unbelievable scene; two zombies that were basically walking skeletons covered in grey desiccated flesh were running amok, destroying property and attacking people as they tried to flee for their lives. The zombies both appeared to be male and were wearing tattered outfits that hadn't been in style since the early 1970s. Their eye sockets burned with some sort of green spectral light. Just as Bolt and Christine had arrived, one of the zombies picked up a blue SUV and threw it through the large storefront window of one of the surrounding buildings.

"Okay, I am totally out of my element here." Bolt declared. "I have no clue how the hell we're supposed to stop these things."

"At least they don't seem to be biting anyone and turning them into more zombies like in the movies." Christine pointed out.

Just as one of the zombies threw a hapless victim through the storefront window that the other zombie had broken, the rest of the gang finally arrived on the scene. Ross, Quinton and Skins all seemed to be at a total loss as to how to resolve the situation just as Bolt was.

"Wow! Quinton, I totally thought you were yanking our chain when you told us that zombies were attacking the city." Ross admitted.

"I haven't the slightest idea about how we can take out these zombies." Quinton spoke as he rubbed the back of his head.

"I'll handle this." Lorain declared as she suddenly stepped forward. "Hey! Deadheads! Why don't you come and get a piece of me?"

"Lorain, what the hell?" a shocked Bolt exclaimed.

Both zombies seemed to hear Lorain and stopped what they were doing. In seconds, the living corpses started to advance on her.

A cold and determined expression was on Lorain's face as she pulled out a pokeball. "Go Volcarona!"

Flying out of Lorain's pokeball was a large plump insect that appeared to be moth that was over five feet long. It had six leaf-like wings that were orange and speckled with tiny black spots. Its torso was covered in smoky white fuzz and had four tiny stubby legs. The moth's abdomen was bluish-white with black spots and a thick strip of black in the middle. Its black head, which had a pair of blue compound eyes, was framed by a pair of red horns that made the head look almost like an Egyptian sun disk.

"Attack those zombies with Fiery Dance!" Lorain commanded. "Burn them both to a crisp!"

Volcorona began to flap its wings and its eyes started to glow blue as it gracefully flitted around in the air. Suddenly the fire moth's entire body became covered in crimson flames. With a flap of its wings, Volcarona sent forth a massive firestorm that consumed both the zombies. The flames burned for several moments and Bolt and the others waited with baited breath to see if the zombies would emerge and try to strangle Lorain. When the fire finally died away though, both of the zombies had been reduced to piles of bone and ash. Lorain called Volcarona back to its ball and silently walked back to the others.

"You okay kid?" Ross asked. "You seem kinda ticked."

"I'm fine." Lorain flatly told them. "Just not in the right mood to deal with this crap right now."

"Looks like cremating those zombies turned out to be the right move." Quinton observed. "Nice job, Lorain."

"Excuse me." A familiar voice spoke. Bolt and the others turned to see the green-haired policewoman known as Officer Jenny. "I've noticed you people showing up at most of the sites for these weird incidents, and I think there's something that you might be interested to hear."

With that, Officer Jenny stepped aside. Walking out from behind her was a man who appeared to be in his early fifties. He was bald and only slightly overweight, and had on a blue t-shirt with a pair of faded jeans.

"Um… my name's Jerry Thompson, and I'm the one who rose those zombies from the dead." The man hesitantly revealed.

"Why don't you tell us exactly what happened." Quinton requested.

"Well… I was visiting the graves of my favorite folk rock duo, Sampson and Goldstein." Jerry began.

"Wait, as in the folk rock duo from the seventies that died in that plane crash?" Ross recalled. "My mom has like all their albums I think."

"Yeah, well… it was Sampson and Goldstein's request to be buried in this town when they finally passed on." Jerry continued. "It was at the Stardust Falls Rock Festival where they really got their big break, you see. Anyway, I was just standing in front of their graves and thinking how great it would be if they could still perform today. Without realizing, I wished that they could both come back to life. Then this weird talking Pokemon popped out behind one of the headstones and said that it would grant my wish. The next thing I knew… the corpses of Sampson and Goldstein had burst up from the ground and started trashing everything!"

"Looks like Jirachi struck again." Bolt realized.

"Jirachi?" Officer Jenny repeated with a raised eyebrow. "I thought that Pokemon was just a myth."

"It's no myth, Officer Jenny." Quinton told her. "This particular Jirachi has been responsible for all the strange incidents that have been happening all over town during this past week."

"And the thing's a psycho." Skins added.

"This is the worst thing to ever happen!" Jerry cried out as he fell to his knees. "Now because of me… the bodies of Sampson and Goldstein are… are… they're kindling!"

"Okay, nobody tell my mom about this part of our trip!" Ross told the others as Jerry began to sob. "She'd be just as devastated as this guy here. Hell, she'd probably disown me if she found out I had a hand in barbecuing those corpses."

Bolt dismounted Raikou with Christine and went over to Jerry. "Okay, Jerry? I just need you to stay with me here for a second. What happened to the Pokemon that raised those two corpses?"

Jerry managed to compose himself. "I don't know. It flew away right after it granted that stupid wish of mine."

"Then I guess we came all the way here for nothing." A familiar voice interrupted. Bolt and the others looked and saw Cassidy standing a few feet away with Butch.

"It's Cassidy from Team Rocket!" Ross identified. "And her partner, what's-his-name."

"Dutch, I think." Quinton recalled.

"It's Butch!" Cassidy's green-haired partner protested.

"What the hell are you losers doing back after all this time?" Bolt asked.

"We came here to snag Jirachi." Cassidy explained. "But since it seems we missed out, we'll just have to settle for some good old fashion revenge."

"Those uniforms you have on… I thought you two were kicked out of Team Rocket that time when we visited Professor Oak's!" Lorain recalled.

"Hell, I didn't even think there was still a Team Rocket after your boss got arrested in Lilycove City." Bolt assumed.

"You know Bolt, you never really told us how Boss Rocket was even captured back then." Quinton recalled. "Just what happened exactly?"

"Not now, man." Bolt told him.

"There are now many different factions of Team Rocket now." Cassidy revealed. "But ours will bring Team Rocket back to what it once was!"

"And I'm guessing that you two are the ones who're gonna lead this new Team Rocket." Ross assumed.

"Actually, no." Butch revealed. "Cassidy and I may have been top agents, but we know we don't really have what it takes to lead a major organization."

"Which is why we've gotten someone much more qualified for the job." Cassidy added.

"So just who is this new boss of yours?" Bolt asked.

"Hello Hanson." A familiar voice cut in as an answer to Bolt's question. Bolt turned his head and saw Richter standing nearby. "I never thought I'd have to deal with trash like you again."

Christine went totally pale upon seeing that Richter was alive. Meanwhile, Bolt stormed over to where Richter was standing and punched him in the face. The punch knocked Richter back a few steps but he managed to remain standing.

"Well… guess you're just as happy to see me too." Richter remarked as he wiped the blood from his lip.

"I'm gonna kill you, you bastard!" Bolt declared. "I know how you've been knocking around Christine! And I know how you blackmailed her into coming back to you ten years ago!"

"How I handle Christine is none of your business." Richter coldly told him. "She belongs to me, and nothing is going to change that. But since you're too thick to get that simple fact, I'm just going to have to put an end to you!" With that, Richter pulled out a pokeball. "Go Torterra!"

Bursting out of Richter's ball thrown was a very large tortoise that was green and dirt-brown in color. Each side of its head was a large white spike. Three similar spikes grew from the right side of its moss-covered shell at an upward angle, and growing from the right side of the shell was a large bonsai tree.

"Raikou! Get in there and use Extrasensory on Torterra!" Bolt commanded.

"Attack with Bulldoze!" Richter ordered.

Raikou roared and charged towards Torterra. As the tiger of thunder moved in, Torterra stomped the ground and sent a wave of spiked earth towards his opponent. Raikou easily jumped to the side to avoid the attack and fired a beam of gold light from the crest on its forehead when it got in range. Raikou's attack hit Torterra in the face but didn't seem to do much damage.

"Richter's Torterra is just as strong as ever." Quinton observed. "And with Bolt in his current frame of mind, he may not be able to beat Richter."

"Then we better help him out." Ross decided.

"I don't think so." Cassidy interrupted as she pulled out a pokeball. "You've all got problems of your own. Go Mandibuzz!"

Flying out of Cassidy's thrown ball was a vulture-like Pokemon with a body covered in mostly in black and grey feathers. It had an almost featherless pink head with a single tuft of black feathers growing on the top with a bone tied into it for decoration. The bird also had black markings that looked like eyeliner around its eyes, and around the base of its neck was thick ring of rough light-brown feathers. Decorating the bird's lower half was a large bone that looked like some kind of jawbone with sharp fangs.

"Don't forget about me!" Butch cut in. "Go Shiftry!"

Bursting out of Butch's pokeball was a brown bipedal creature with yellow eyes, pointed ears, and a long pointed nose. Much of its face was covered in long white fur that trailed down its back. Its hands were a pair of fans made up of three green and brown leaves, and its feet resembled a pair of Japanese tengu-geta shoes.

Skins pulled out a pokeball in response. "Go Aerodactyl!"

The drummer's stone wyvern flew out of its pokeball with a roar.

"Go Chrome!" Quinton called with the throw of his own ball.

Quinton's silver Metagross burst out of its ball with a sparkling flash.

"We don't have time to deal with you losers!" Quinton declared. "Chrome, take down Mandibuzz with Thunder Punch!"

"Use Sky Drop of Shiftry!" Skins commanded.

"Attack with Dark Pulse!" Butch and Cassidy commanded together.

The stones in Skins and Quinton's Mega Rings suddenly began to glow, and in seconds their two Pokemon began to glow and change shape. Aerodactyl and Chrome finished their transformations as multicolored lights resembling DNA strands glowed momentarily above their heads and they began to fly full speed towards their opponents. Mandibuzz and Shiftry opened their mouths and fired a barrage of black energy rings at Chrome and Aerodactyl respectively. Aerodactyl and Chrome plowed through the attacks, with Aerodactyl grabbing Shiftry and flying up into the air. After doing a midair flip, the prehistoric wyvern flung Shiftry back down into the ground with enough force to make a crater. Meanwhile as Chrome got in range of Mandibuzz, the golden claws on its upper right arm began to crackle with yellow electricity. The spaceship Pokemon slammed its electrified claws into Mandibuzz, knocking her to the ground.

"This isn't going to end well for you!" Quinton declared. "Now step aside so we can help Bolt!"

Cassidy smirked. "I think you should take a look at what's going on."

"Uh, guys?" Lorain spoke. "I think we've got a new set of problems."

Quinton, Skins and Ross looked and saw that they had been completely surrounded by a gang of twelve men and eight women wearing Team Rocket uniforms. Bolt paused his battle with Richter when he soon noticed the small army as well.

"Hey boss!" a male voice called. Everyone looked to see one of the male Team Rocket agents holding an unconscious Christine. "This is the girl you wanted us to nab, right?"

"It is. You've done well, whoever you are." Richter praised. "I'll see that you get rewarded when we get back to our base."

"Let go of Christine now!" Bolt ordered.

"I think we're done here." Richter decided. "Cassidy!"

"Koffing Squad! Give us some cover!" Cassidy ordered.

All of the other Team Rocket agents except for the one holding Christing threw out a pokeball. Bursting out of each one was a floating purplish-grey ball with a face. Each one had an off-white symbol resembling the skull and crossbones.

"Use Explosion!" the Team Rocket agents commanded.

On cue, all of the floating gas balls glowed white and exploded, covering the entire area with thick black smoke. When the smoke finally cleared, Richter and his gang were gone, as was Christine.

Bolt cried out and slammed his fist into a nearby lamppost. "Dammit!"

"Dude. Calm down." Skins told Bolt.

"I can't calm down! That son of a bitch has Christine!" Bolt exclaimed.

"It's okay Bolt. Earlier I planted a tracking device on Christine's jacket." Quinton revealed. "We should easily be able to locate where she's being held."

"Dude! Why'd you put a tracker on Christine?" Ross asked with a raised eyebrow. "It's kinda creepy."

"Well, Richter's remains were never identified among the bodies found at the Wyler villa, so I thought there was a chance that he might still be alive and that he might try and take Christine." Quinton explained. "It's a little thing called justifiable paranoia. I'm only sorry that I was right."

"So what you're saying is that we can just head over to Richter's hideout and take back Christine." Bolt realized. "Fine! Let's get the hell over there!"

"Hold on! This Richter has probably taken Christine to wherever Team Rocket's base is." Officer Jenny pointed out. "Let me get a team together and come with you. It'll take a few hours, but it's better if you have backup."

"She's right, Bolt." Lorain told him. "And you need to take a few minutes to calm down. This is Richter you're up against, for crying out loud! You can't take him down by just charging in."

Bolt took a deep breath. "Okay… we'll fall back for now. But I want us to get to Richter's base as soon as we can."

As Bolt and the others left to prepare for the raid against Team Rocket, they were totally unaware that Jirachi had been watching everything from a nearby alley. The little Pokemon flew off to follow Bolt and the gang in secret.

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Please review and let me know what you think.


	8. The Caged Bird

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokemon.

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Chapter 8: The Caged Bird

The hours at the Pokemon Center in Stardust Falls passed by slowly as Bolt and the gang waited for Officer Jenny to assemble a proper team to raid Team Rocket's base. Stardust Falls was a small town, and Officer Jenny was forced to ask for assistance from the police departments of the surrounding towns in order to get a large enough team put together. Meanwhile, Bolt couldn't help but worry about what Richter might do to Christine now that she was back in his clutches. Bolt tried to distract himself by preparing a strategy to defeat Richter in battle, but the idea of battling Richter again was almost as troubling. Richter was one of the few opponents Bolt had gone up against who could easily defeat him, and with the stakes as high as they were the blonde rock star knew that he couldn't afford to lose.

At that moment Bolt was sitting on the couch trying to clear his thoughts when Quinton walked up to him. "Hey man. How ya holding up?"

Bolt let out a heavy sigh. "I guess I'm doing okay, considering… You sure that tracker you planted on Christine is working?"

"I'm picking her up loud and clear." Quinton assured him as he held up the small electronic device that was giving a steady beep. "There's no way we'll lose her."

"We better not. I don't think I could handle losing Christine again." Bolt admitted. "Especially not like this."

Quinton sat down next to Bolt on the couch. "You're really shaken up. I guess there's no question that you're still in love with Christine."

"I just… I'm not sure if I'm strong enough to get her back." Bolt told him. "I mean this is Richter that I'm up against! I mean I've gone up against other Ground Pokemon users before and I've done okay against them… but Richter's on a whole other level."

"You've beaten Richter before." Quinton pointed out. "That Earth Badge from the Viridian Gym that you earned is proof of that."

"Yeah, but that was like a lifetime ago man!" Bolt reminded him. "I probably can't beat him using that same old strategy. Besides… this won't be a friendly match where the first trainer to have three Pokemon knocked out is done. This'll be an all out brawl where the winner is the last guy standing."

"I get that." Quinton told him. "But I know that you'll still find some way to beat Richter. You're fighting to get back the woman you love, and I know that it'll take something more than a simple type advantage to stop you."

"Yeah… I'll figure out something." Bolt agreed after a moment. "I just hope that Richter doesn't hurt Christine before I finally do."

* * *

Christine awoke after an uncertain amount of time to find that she was lying on a steel cot in what was essentially a jail cell. The room itself was a small rectangular chamber with battleship grey walls and a blue tiles floor. Only a few feet in front of Christine was a wall of bars made of an odd gold-colored metal. Christine's head throbbed as she slowly sat up. After a moment, the songstress remembered how she had been watching Bolt's battle with Richter when suddenly something struck her on the back of her head. The next thing Christine knew, everything had gone dark.

Panic began to come over Christine as she realized that she had been captured by Richter's version of Team Rocket. As she fully sat up on the cot, which was really more like a bench built into the wall, she began to really look at her surroundings. The crutches Christine had been using to get around were leaning against the wall to her right. She then felt around the pockets of the black leather jacket that Quinton had given her to wear before the gang had left to deal with the zombies and was relieved to find that all of her pokeballs were still there. It would've killed Christine if Team Rocket had confiscated her Pokemon to sell on the black market or worse.

Suddenly the thick metal door at the other side of the room beyond the bars opened up. Richter walked in and gently shut the door behind him. Christine's panic started to intensify.

"Good. You're awake." Richter observed. "Before you get any cute ideas, those bars are specially designed to withstand any kind of Pokemon attack. Even a Dragon-type move couldn't break them down. Of course I know your Pokemon aren't really much of a threat. The ones you have are just cute pets that you keep around for company."

"What do you want Richter?" Christine asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Richter responded. "Our wedding is still on, Christine. It may have been delayed by this whole incident with Jirachi, but it's still going to go on as planned."

"I am not marrying you!" Christine declared. "And you can't force me to! Not anymore. Not now that may father's dead!"

"Your father's death doesn't change anything." Richter told her as he came closer to the bars of her cell. "I may not have the same leverage over you that I did once, but our marriage will happen. Who knows? Perhaps once I get ahold of Jirachi I can figure out a wish that will make you more… cooperative."

"No matter what kind of wish you make to Jirachi, it still won't change anything." Christien told him. "I don't love you, Richter. I never did. I may have liked you a little when we first met, but our marriage was never something that I agreed to."

Richter punched the bars of Christine's bars, causing her to gasp. "Dammit Christine! When the hell are you going to realize that you belong to me? From the moment I first saw you I realized that the two of us were made for each other! Maybe you think that you can live without me, but I know that I cannot live without you."

"Richter… if you really do love me like you say you do… than you wouldn't be trying to control me like this!" Christine told him. "That isn't love, Richter! I'm… I'm sorry that I don't feel the same way about you, but if you really love me like you claim, you'll let me live my own life and be happy for me."

Richter stepped away from the bars and paced around the room in silence for a few moments in an attempt to compose himself. "I really wish you didn't always have to be so difficult, Christine. But I know that I can get you to come around eventually. I got you to cooperate before ten years ago and I'll do it again. In the end you won't have any choice but to be with me. And do you know why that is, Christine? Because all you are is a caged bird. From almost the moment you were born, you father has groomed you for a single role: the role of my wife. You can cry out and thrash around your cage all you want, you can even fly away for a bit whenever someone forgets to close the door to your cage, but in the end you will never have the strength to fly free on your own. You will always belong to me."

With that, Richter turned on his heel and walked back trough the heavy metal door. Once he was gone, Christine sighed heavily and buried her face in her hands. She realized that to a certain extent, Richter was right. Christine had never truly been able to stand up him or father. Hell, if she hadn't encountered Jirachi that night, she would've been on her wretched honeymoon with Richter at that moment. And while it was true that the main reason Christine had abandoned Bolt ten years ago was because of the leverage that Richter and her father had on her biological mother, the fact was that Christine never really had the guts to stand up to Richter or her father. Christine found that she was disgusted by that fact. Perhaps if she had been stronger, things between her and Bolt would've turned out much better than they did ten years ago.

At that moment, Christine lied back down on the uncomfortable metal bench and curled up into a fetal position. She began to wish desperately for Bolt to come and rescue her.

* * *

Dusk had fallen on the town and Bolt was practically chewing the walls as he and the others waited for Officer Jenny to finish assembling her taskforce. By the time the sun had almost completely set, an army of a hundred officers had assembled outside the Pokemon Center. Two other members of the Officer Jenny clan had also arrived to help the Officer Jenny of Stardust Falls lead the operation. Once the taskforce had finally been assembled, the Officer Jenny of Stardust Falls came to get Bolt and the rest of the gang.

"Are we finally ready to do this thing?" Ross asked Officer Jenny as she arrived. "I'm getting tired of just sitting on my ass like this. And I know Bolt's more than ready to get going."

"We've just finished briefing the rest of the team." Officer Jenny replied. "Since you know the location of the base, we'll let you people lead the way. I only ask though that you let us handle the apprehension of the Team Rocket members we find there. I know you can handle yourselves pretty well against them, but this is still an official police matter."

"No problem with us. We're just going in to rescue Christine and that's it." Quinton told her.

"Though if any of those Team Rocket jerks get in our way, we're not gonna hesitate to bust their skulls." Ross added.

"What about Jirachi?" Lorain suddenly asked. "What if it starts causing mischief while we're out fighting Richter and Team Rocket?"

"We'll have to worry about Jirachi later." Bolt told her. "Right now getting back Christine is more important."

"Plus we need to stop this new faction of Team Rocket before they get their hands on such a Pokemon." Officer Jenny added. "If that happens, who knows what damage they could cause? Now let's move out!"

With that, Bolt and the rest of the gang joined Officer Jenny's taskforce outside the Pokemon Center and followed the signal to Richter's base. As the small army left, Jirachi watched them silently as he hovered above the roof of the Pokemon Center. Keeping his eyes on Bolt, Jirachi followed the army silently from the air as they went off to battle.

* * *

As Christine remained curled up on the bench of her cell, the room's metal door opened and a male Team Rocket grunt entered carrying a tray of food in his hands. The Rocket agent unlocked the door to Christine's cell and walked inside.

"Hey! The boss wants you taken care of, so I came and brought you dinner." The Rocket agent informed her. "Now take it and eat up."

Suddenly Christine sat back up on the bench and threw a pokeball from her pocket in a single swift motion. Meloetta burst out of the thrown ball, starling the Team Rocket grunt and causing him the drop the tray of food.

"What the hell?" the Team Rocket agent exclaimed as he reached for one of the pokeballs hanging from his belt. "I don't know how you got a Pokemon like that, but I'm taking it off your hands!"

"Meloetta! Use Psychic!" Christine commanded.

Meloetta's eyes glowed blue, and suddenly the Team Rocket grunt was lifted off the air by an invisible force and hurled back through the open door the cell and into the heavy metal door outside. The male agent was out cold as his body slid to the floor. Being careful not to put any weight on her still injured ankle, Christine got up off the bench and hopped over to get her crutches. With the crutches giving her the support that she needed, Christine exited the cell with Meloetta. Meloetta then used her psychic abilities to move the fallen Team Rocket agent aside so they could get through the door. In moments Christine and Meloetta were out of the room and heading up a small flight if stairs.

"I'm through living in your cage, Richter." Christine spoke. "This time I'm really standing up to you."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** That last scene where Christine escaped her cell actually isn't something I had originally planned. If fact I just sort of tacked it on because when I finished that third scene the chapter was still just a tad too short. Actually this whole story has been going differently than how I had originally planned.

Please review and let me know what you think.


	9. Reckoning of Thunder and Earth

**Author's Note:** I don't know how many of you reading have been watching the _Pokemon Generations_ shorts that have started running on YouTube recently, but they're actually proving to be pretty good. I actually watched the third one about an hour ago, and it actually helped me a little bit with finishing this chapter.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokemon.

* * *

Chapter 9: Reckoning of Thunder and Earth

The moon had risen as the small army that had been assembled to take on Team Rocket surrounded the base. Hours before the operation, Quinton had give the Officer Jenny of Stardust Falls the coordinates of Christine's tracking signal, which had allowed Officer Jenny to check for any abandoned buildings at that location and find the abandoned weather institute. With this information in hand, Officer Jenny had gotten old blueprints on the layout of the weather institute building and plan the most effective raid possible. The weather institute building was actually quite large, with three stories, a small basement level, and sprawling wings on the east and west side. Upon their arrival, the raiding party split up to surround the large grey edifice.

Two teams had quickly positioned themselves outside the walls of the east and west wings, while Bolt and the gang remained with the team that was going to be entering from the front. On the lead Officer Jenny's signal, the two teams on the east and west deployed their Pokemon and broke through the walls. Once the other two teams had penetrated the building, the team with Bolt and the others broke in through the front. As soon as they were in, the lead team that had come in through the front door encountered six Team Rocket soldiers that immediately sent out their Pokemon to fight off the intruders. The police officers deployed their own Pokemon and a brutal Battle Royale ensued. In the midst of the chaos, Bolt and the rest of the gang remained where they were to plan out where to find Christine.

"Unfortunately, the tracker I planted on Christine can't give us an exact location!" Quinton informed the others over the roar of the battle. "The most logical place for Richter to put Christine is the basement, since there aren't many exits out of there! Just in case though, I think we should split up to cover more ground! Skins and I will go with two of the cops to the top floor and begin searching our way down! Bolt, you and the others head for the basement! We'll meet back up with you as fast as we can, hopefully with Christine!"

"Sounds like as good a plan as any!" Bolt decided. "Let's do it!"

With that, Quinton and Skins took the only two police officers that weren't occupied in battle and headed for the stairs to the top floor. Meanwhile, Bolt went with Skins and Lorain to the hallway that led to the basement door. Lorain had to duck out of the way of a Flamethrower attack from one of the combatant's Pokemon from the way there; from which side the attack came from, Lorain couldn't say. The hallway leading to the basement seemed completely clear at first, but when Bolt and his two companions finally came in sight of the door, Cassidy and Butch were standing in their path.

"This is as far as you go!" Butch declared.

"The boss was expecting you to come here, so he had us wait here to greet you." Cassidy revealed. "Of course none of us were expecting you to bring so many friends with you. You're going to pay double for that!"

"Get the hell out of our way!" Bolt ordered.

"Not a chance!" Butch told him. "If you wanna get past us, you're gonna have to beat us first!"

"Go Poliwrath!" Ross called out as he suddenly threw a pokeball.

Bursting out of the thrown ball was a bipedal dark-blue creature with a pair of almost frog-like eyes on top of its body in place of a head. It had two thick powerful-looking arms with white gloves on the hands. It had a white chest that bore a black spiral pattern on the front.

"Go Beedrill!" Lorain called as she threw out a pokeball of her own.

Beedrill flew out of the ball and buzzed in front of Cassidy.

"You go on ahead, Bolt!" Ross told him. "The kid and I will take care of these losers."

"Check! Thanks guys!" Bolt replied as he ran past Butch and Cassidy.

In moments, Bolt was through the door that led down into the basement. Meanwhile, Cassidy and Butch remained standing against Lorain and Ross' two Pokemon.

"You two are gonna regret this!" Butch declared as he pulled out one of his pokeballs. "Go Shiftry!"

Butch's white-haired plant creature burst out of its ball to face Ross' Poliwrath.

"You picked the wrong Pokemon to go up against me, girlie!" Cassidy declared as she produced her own pokeball. "Go Houndoom!"

Bursting out of the thrown pokeball was a large black dog with a red snout. The creature didn't seem to have any visible ears. In their place, the dog had a pair of long white horns that curved backward. Its tail ended in a point like that of a devil, and on its back were white bands that looked like ribs. There was also a white band around its neck that had a small skull on the front of it, giving the band the appearance of a dog collar.

"This is going to be a piece of cake." Cassidy declared.

"Don't bet on it!" Lorain told her. "Beedrill! Use Poison Jab!"

The stones that Lorain and Beedrill both glowed, and in seconds Beedrill's body gave off a brilliant light and changed shaped. The multicolored DNA symbol glowed above Beedrill's head as soon as his transformation had finished. The stinger tipping Beedrill's abdomen glowed with a purple light as he tucked in his legs and flew towards Houndoom at incredible speed. Houndoom attempted to turn its head to avoid the worst damage from the attack, only to get stung in the neck.

"Poliwrath! Hit that Shiftry with Scald!" Ross commanded.

Poliwrath blasted Shiftry with a powerful stream of steaming hot water from his chest, hitting the forest creature in the stomach. The attack seemed to do little damage, but a bright red mark had been left on Shiftry's stomach.

"What are you? An idiot?" Butch asked Ross with a mocking smirk. "You know that Water attacks won't work on a Grass Pokemon like Shiftry!"

"I know that, but damage wasn't what I was going for." Ross revealed. "In case you haven't noticed, you Shiftry just got left with a pretty bad burn!"

Meanwhile, Houndoom suddenly seemed to be having a little trouble standing. The demon hound's face had turned a slight shade of purple as its legs began to shake.

"Looks like my attack poisoned your Houndoom." Lorain observed. "Now I've got you right where I want you."

Cassidy scowled and clenched her fists. "You're dead, you big-chested bitch!"

* * *

Bolt reached the large almost cavernous chamber that served as the main part of the building's basement. Several old wooden crates were lining the bricked walls of the room, and standing in the middle of the room was Richter.

"I figured you'd show up sooner or later, Hanson." Richter spoke. "It's far past time you and I settled things once and for all."

"Where the hell is Christine?" Bolt asked.

"That's none of your business." Richter told him. "I thought this room would work for the stage of our final battle. Until you beat me, and that's very unlikely, you're not going a step further."

"Dammit!" Bolt cursed as he pulled out a pokeball. "Go Magnezone!"

Flying out of the thrown pokeball was a blue-grey machine-like creature that looked like a flying saucer. It had a single large eye with a red iris on the front, and on the sides of its body were what could be considered two extra heads, each with a large eye of its own. Both heads had a large horseshoe magnet on its underside, and on top of the smaller heads was a large screw that pointed back at an angle. A third magnet was on the underside of the main head at the rear, and on top was a large yellow antenna.

"You're making this too easy." Richter declared with a confident smirk as he threw out a pokeball. "Go Torterra!"

The giant tortoise Pokemon burst out of the ball and hit the ground with a loud thud.

"Attack Magnezone with Bulldoze!" Richter commanded.

"Use Magnet Rise!" Bolt ordered.

The three magnets attached to Magnezone's body suddenly began to crackle with yellow electrical energy. Just as Torterra stomped the floor and sent a wave of jagged earth across the battlefield at Magnezone, the saucer Pokemon lifted several feet in the air towards the high ceiling, causing the attack to miss.

"Thanks to Magnet Rise, Magnezone can't be hit by your Pokemon's Ground attacks!" Bolt revealed. "Okay Magnezone! Use Flash Cannon!"

"Fight back with Seed Bomb!" Richter ordered.

The antenna on top of Magnezone's body pulsed with yellow light for a few moments as its central eye began to glow blue. After a few moments, the electrical Pokemon fired a powerful beam of blue energy from its central eye that struck Torterra in the face. The attack caused Torterra to stumble back two steps but seemed to do very little damage. After recovering from the attack, Torterra opened his jaws and fired several large balls of white light into the air at his opponent. Magnezone attempted to weave out of the way of the projectiles but ended up getting hit two times.

"Use Magnet Bomb!" Bolt commanded.

A ball of blue energy formed around Magnezone's crackling right magnet. When the ball got large enough, the mechanical Pokemon fired it down at Torterra. The glowing projectile struck the base of the tree growing from Torterra's shell, creating a small explosion. When the smoke cleared, Torterra was relatively undamaged from the attack.

"Use Seed Bomb again!" Richter commanded.

"Flash Cannon!" Bolt ordered.

Magnezone fired another beam of light from its central eye that struck Torterra on his shell. Soon after, Torterra fired another barrage of light balls that managed to strike Magnezone three times. Suddenly Magnezone's magnets stopped crackling with electricity and the mechanical Pokemon descended to its normal level of flight.

"Finish it with Bulldoze!" Richter ordered.

Torterra stomped the floor and sent another wave of earth across the battlefield. This time Magnezone was hit and flipped back through the air six timed before crashing to the ground. When the dust settled, Magnezone was unconscious.

"Did you really think that taking those cheap shots from the air was going to work?" Richter asked as Bolt called back Magnezone.

"Nah. But I figured it might at least soften up Torterra for this!" Bolt responded as he threw out another pokeball. "Let's rock, Rotom!"

Flying out of the thrown ball as a red-orange creature resembling a refrigerator. It had a small spike growing from the top, and its freezer door had a face consisting of a grinning mouth and two crazed purple eyes. Its body gave off a purple electrical aura that formed two lightning bolt-shaped blades on the sides near its base.

"How predictable." Richter remarked. "But then there is only so much you can do against my Pokemon. Still, don't think you can beat me the same way you defeated me in our gym battle back in Viridian. This battle can only end one way."

"You bet it can!" Bolt responded. "With me beating you to a pulp!"

* * *

Ross and Lorain's battle against Butch and Cassidy continued to rage on. Beedrill and Poliwrath had already taken some significant damage due to Houndoom and Shiftry's type advantage. Even so, the poison that was coursing through Houndoom's veins was really taking its toll, as was the burn on Shiftry's stomach. Despite the heavy damage that both sides had taken, neither one was willing to give an inch.

"Shiftry, attack Poliwrath with Bullet Seed!" Butch commanded.

"Houndoom, finish Beedrill with Flamethrower!" Cassidy commanded.

"Dodge and use Drill Run!" Lorain ordered.

Houndoom spewed out a stream of flames into the air at Beedrill. The wasp Pokemon swiftly moved to the side to avoid the attack, causing the flames to leave a burn mark on the ceiling. Beedrill flew down towards the demon hound at full speed, and as he did the stinger on the end of his abdomen began to glow green and spin like a drill. The whirling stinger struck Houndoom on its back, and after Beedrill withdrew Houndoom collapsed onto its side unconscious. As all this was going on, Shiftry opened its mouth and fired a barrage of small balls of orange light. The attack struck Poliwrath on the chest, but the fighting polliwog remained standing.

"I've had enough of this loser!" Ross declared. "Poliwrath! End this with Ice Punch!"

Poliwrath charged in with his fist raised, and as he moved in his gloved hand became covered in an icy mist. Once he was in range, Poliwrath rammed his fist hard into Shiftry's stomach, causing a large patch of ice to form over the front of the forest creature's torso. Shiftry collapsed to the ground and was out like a light.

"Don't think this is over yet." Cassidy declared as she and Butch called back their Pokemon. "We're just getting warmed up."

"Freeze!" a voice suddenly interrupted. The four looked and saw that a member of the Officer Jenny trio leading the assault force arrived with four other officers. "You're outgunned now. Just put your hands in the air and come along quietly."

"Dammit!" Butch cursed as be pulled out another pokeball. "Go Abra!"

Emerging from the thrown ball was a small bipedal creature with a head with a slight resemblance to the head of a fox. Its eyes were closed and it sat on the ground with its legs crossed. Much of its skin was colored a brownish yellow, with the skin of its upper torso colored completely brown and resembling armor.

"Get us the hell out of here Abra!" Butch commanded. "Use Teleport!"

Abra's eyes opened slightly and its body glowed with a feint blue aura. Before Officer Jenny and her team could do anything to stop them, Abra vanished in a flash of white light along with Cassidy and Butch.

"Well damn!" Officer Jenny cursed. "Those two are actually a pretty infamous pair of criminals. To think that I let them slip through my hands like that."

"With all due respect Officer Jenny, we've got bigger problems right now." Lorain told her. "Right now, Bolt is down in the basement fighting against Richter."

"Yeah, and he'll probably need all the help he can get." Ross added. "Hopefully Bolt's been able to hold out while we've been stuck with those two pinheads we were just fighting."

* * *

The battle between Bolt and Richter continued on as Rotom let loose a Blizzard attack against Torterra. The storm of ice and snow hit the giant tortoise and covered him in a layer of frost. Torterra remained standing however and fired another Seed Bomb attack into the air at Rotom. The possessed refrigerator was hit by three of the glowing projectiles, but still managed to remain floating in the air. Both Pokemon had taken some pretty significant damage since the start of their battle, but Rotom seemed to be worse off than Torterra.

"This is becoming a waste of time." Richter declared.

"Rotom! Attack with Shadow Ball!" Bolt commanded.

The fridge doors on Rotom's chest opened again and fired a ball of crackling black energy at Torterra. The attack struck Torterra's shell near the base of its tree, creating a small explosion. When the smoke from the explosion cleared though, Torterra seemed relatively undamaged.

"End this, Torterra!" Richter ordered. "Wood Hammer!"

Torterra cried out and suddenly jumped into the air higher than one might expect possible for such a large bulking tortoise. As he came down towards Rotom, Torterra's underside began to glow with a green light. The tree-covered tortoise crashed into Rotom with enough force to leave a crater in the floor of the basement. When the dust settled, Rotom was found to be out cold.

"You were hoping to weaken my Torterra enough to finish it off with Raikou, right?" Richter assumed as Bolt called Rotom back to its ball. "That may have worked in our gym battle, but it won't work here. Even if you did somehow manage to beat Torterra, I've still got plenty of other Pokemon that are more than enough to finish you off. In the end, an Electric Pokemon specialist like you could never truly surpass a Ground-type specialist like me; just like you can never truly hope to gain all the things that I have. I will always be above you Hanson, and nothing will ever change that."

"You really are an arrogant son of a bitch, you know that Richter?" Bolt responded. "That's going to make it even sweeter when I finally take you down!"

"That's not going to happen." Richter told him. "I'm going to crush you into the ground. Then I'm going to make it so that you never come near Christine ever again."

"Go Ninetales!" a voice suddenly interrupted.

Bolt and Richter looked to see that Christine had just thrown a pokeball into the arena. Meloetta was out floating next to where Christine was standing. Bursting out of Christine's thrown pokeball was a large fox covered in a shimmering coat of bluish-white fur that seemed to give it an almost ethereal quality. It had nine tails covered in wavy white fur that almost seemed to resemble an aurora, and long wavy tuft of fur covered the top of the fox's head. The eyes of the fox were colored a deep ice blue.

"Christine! What're you…?" Richter began to ask.

"Ninetales! Attack Torterra with Blizzard!" Christine commanded.

Ninetales opened her mouth and breathed out a storm of snow and ice stronger than the attacks Rotom had been using. This time Torterra was buried in a thick coat of snow. When the attack ended, Torterra collapsed and was unconscious.

"I'm your opponent now, Richter!" Christine told him. "And I'm not going to let you hurt Bolt!"

Richter calmly called Torterra back to his pokeball. "Okay Christine… I guess I'm going to have to beat you into the ground too in order to teach you a lesson."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I don't actually know if the Alolan Ninetales is going to be capable of using Blizzard in the upcoming Sun and Moon games, but it really looked like that Ninetales from that one trailer had used a Blizzard attack against its opponent. Let's hope this doesn't prove to be a mistake that comes back to haunt me later.

Please review and let me know what you think.


	10. Wishes and Consequences

**Author's Note:** Just a heads-up, this chapter is going to include a character from one of my earlier Pokemon stories, _I Was a Teenage Jenny_. Anyone remember that story? Anyway, that's all I'm going to say at the moment.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokemon.

* * *

Chapter 10: Wishes and Consequences

"You're not going to beat me, Richter!" Christine declared. "I'm ending this nightmare right now!"

"As if you have what it takes to beat me in a Pokemon battle!" Richter told her. "This bizarre Ninetales of yours is somewhat impressive, but there's no chance that it or any other Pokemon you have can overcome mine! Even that Meloetta is powerless against me. And I'm going to prove that right now! Go Excadrill!"

Bursting out of the pokeball Richter had thrown was a fairly large dirt-brown mole-like creature with a white face and pink nose. A red almost diamond-shaped pattern was on its stomach, and extending outward from the top of its head was a horn that looked like part of a drill bit. The long claws on the creature's arms looked like the remaining two segments of the drill bit that was on its head.

"Excadrill! Attack that Ninetales with Metal Claw!" Richter commanded.

Excadrill charged across the room as the claws on its right arm began to glow with a white light. The mole Pokemon came at Ninetales from the left and slashed the arctic fox in the side, landing a critical hit to its opponent. Seeing that Ninetales was at a disadvantage, Christine called Ninetales back to her ball.

"Go Dragonite!" Christine called with the throw of another pokeball.

Emerging from the thrown ball was a yellow bipedal dragon that stood at a little over six feet. The dragon had a very friendly appearance, almost like the kind of creature one might see on a television show meant for young children. On the top of the dragon's head was a pair of slender feelers and a single short horn that grew in between them. On the back of the dragon was a pair of yellow bat-like wings that were green on the inside and seemed just a little too small for its body.

"What the… how the hell is it that you have a Dragonite?" a stunned Richter demanded to know.

"Christine… is that…?" Bolt began to ask.

"This Pokemon used to be the Dratini that you caught for me in the Safari Zone." Christine answered with a nod. "Training that Pokemon after I left you… it made me feel closer to you, Bolt."

Richter clenched his fists in anger at his sides. "I am going to destroy that Pokemon! Excadrill! Use Metal Claw again!"

"Attack with Aqua Tail!" Christine ordered.

Excadrill's claws began to glow again as it charged at Dragonite. Before the mole Pokemon could land a blow, Dragonite swung its tail around as it suddenly became covered in a twister of water. The yellow dragon's tail slammed hard into Excadrill's chest and hurled it across the room into one of the wooden crates lining the walls, causing it to shatter apart. It took a few moments for Excadrill to get back to its feet.

"Dammit!" Richter cursed. "Use Rapid Spin!"

"Finish it with Flamethrower!" Christine commanded.

Before Excadrill could make a move, Dragonite flew across the field with incredible speed and breathed out a stream of red flames from its mouth that hit the mole Pokemon in the chest. When the attack ended, Excadrill collapsed onto its side and was unconscious.

Richter called back his fallen Pokemon. "This is far from over. Go Mamoswine!"

Bursting out of the next pokeball that Richter threw was a fairly large creature that appeared to be a strange cross between a wild bore and a wooly mammoth. The creature didn't seem to have any ears, but it was hard to tell whether or not it did because most of its body was covered in thick brown fur. The creature's face was bare, and around its eyes was a blue marking resembling a mask rimmed in white. It had a short pig-like snout, and growing from its face were two long white tusks that curved upward towards the end.

"Attack with Icicle Crash!" Richter commanded.

Mamoswine growled and began to charge across the field at Dragonite. As the pig-mammoth came closer, an icy mist gathered on its forehead and formed into a thick ling icicle. Mamoswine rammed the icicle horn on its head into Dragonite's stomach, causing the horn to shatter and the dragon to fall on its side.

"Fight back with Flamethrower!" Christine ordered.

After a moment, Dragonite got back up and breathed out another stream of flames. The attack hit Mamoswine in the face.

"Now use Aqua Tail!" Christine commanded.

Just as Mamoswine seemed to recover from the last attack, Dragonite swung its water-shrouded tail hard into Mamoswine's side. The pig-mammoth nearly toppled over but managed to remain standing. At that moment, Ross burst through the basement door with Lorain and Officer Jenny.

"Bolt! We're here to…" Ross began, but he paused when he saw the battle between Dragonite and Mamoswine. "What the hell?"

"Is… is that Dragonite Christine's?" Lorain asked.

"Sure is." Bolt confirmed. "And she's hanging in there pretty well. She even beat Richter's Torterra. Of course I kinda softened it up for her."

"Enough of this!" Richter declared. "Mamoswine, use Ice Fang!"

Mamoswine charged at Dragonite as its tusks glowed and gave off an icy mist. The pig-mammoth rammed into the dragon with all its weight and the resulting impact hurled Dragonite across the room to where Christine and Meloetta were standing. Meloetta managed to move out of the way in time, but Christine was knocked to the ground and an unconscious Dragonite landed on top of her.

"Christine!" Bolt called as he ran across the field to help her.

Meloetta used her psychic powers to lift Dragonite off Christine as Bolt came up to her. Christine was still conscious as Bolt helped her back to her feet.

"You okay?" a concerned Bolt asked.

"I'm fine." Christine assured him. "I'll probably have a bruise later, but other than that I'm okay."

"Get away from her, Hanson!" Richter ordered. "She belongs to me! And I've had enough of you laying your hands on my property!"

"You twisted son of a bitch!" Bolt cursed. "I wish that you would just forget all about Christine and leave her the hell alone!"

Suddenly the cover of a vent near the ceiling of the room burst off and Jirachi flew into the room. "I heard that! Consider your wish granted!"

The eye on Jirachi's chest then opened and began to shine with a silvery light. Suddenly Richter cried out in pain and fell to his knees. His eyes were glowing with a blazing silver light and blood was starting to drip from his nose and his ears. This went on for about a minute or two until both Richter and Mamoswine suddenly vanished with a silvery flash.

Bolt looked at the empty spot where Richter had once been in shock. "What… what the hell did you just do?"

"I wiped all memory of Ms. Christine from his mind and teleported him and his Pokemon to a faraway place." Jirachi explained. "I also programed him so that he'd be compelled to walk away from Christine and have no contact with her in the event he ever came in sight of her. I may have also caused some minor brain damage in the process. Admittedly, I've never been all that good at this type of mental programing."

"We you just waiting around for Bolt to make a wish like that?" Ross asked the wish granter.

"Him or his rival." Jirachi answered. "I noticed the conflict your friend was having with this Mr. Chase as was fascinated. I was curious to see which of them would end up calling upon my power first. The result was actually quite interesting. That was a very creative wish you made, Mr. Hanson."

"Look little guy, I never asked for your help." Bolt told him.

"Perhaps not, but that is why my power exists." Jirachi told him. "The purpose of my being is to give humans what they lack the power to get themselves, and to reveal the true nature of their desires."

"Hey, I may have wanted Richter to stay away from Christine, and I guess I even wanted to see him hurt too, but I never wanted anything like that to happen to him." Bolt declared. "People don't really want what they wish for in the heat of the moment."

"My observations beg to differ." Jirachi replied. "For instance, your other friend Ms. Lorain wished for Ms. Christine's death so she could have you to herself. It's not any different than the way you just did away with your own romantic rival."

"Jirachi! I may have wanted Bolt to myself, but… there's no way that I wanted Christine to die so I could have him!" Lorain told him. "There's no way I'd ever kill somebody to get something I wanted. That's just sick."

"The behavior of you humans really is perplexing." Jirachi remarked. "I would think that the end result would matter more than you to the means it took to get that result."

"That's where you're wrong!" Christine told him. "We humans may all have wish and dreams for things that we've always wanted, but there are certain ways that we don't want to use to get those things; ways that are just wrong. I'm free of my father because of that wish I made to you, but I feel horrible that he's dead because I made that wish to you."

"…Morality and sentimentality. Those are the greatest weaknesses of the human race." Jirachi indifferently declared. "Fortunately I am not inhibited by such weaknesses. This conversation of ours has been very enlightening, as I now understand the true reason for my existence. I am here to help humans overcome those weaknesses to obtain your desires."

"I've had enough of this crap!" Ross declared. "It's time we put this psycho Pokemon away!"

"I couldn't agree more!" Officer Jenny spoke. "Jirachi, you are a menace to society and I'm afraid it's my duty to take you into custody!"

"I don't think that's going to happen." Jirahci told her. "Flash attack!"

The eye on Jirachi's chest opened back up and a blinding silvery flash filled the room. When the light finally cleared, Jirachi was nowhere to be found in the room.

"Damn!" Ross cursed. "Now we gotta hunt that little bastard down all over again!"

"Looks that way." Bolt observed. "But… I get the feeling that we're not gonna have any luck."

"It may not matter anyway. The week's practically over, which means Jirachi will be going back to sleep soon." Lorain pointed out. "Let's hope that nobody else gets hurt before then."

* * *

The amount of strange incidents in the town of Stardust Falls decreased sharply after the raid on the Team Rocket base. There were a few reports of very minor odd occurrences throughout the town, but nobody could determine if Jirachi was the cause. To Bolt and the gang, it seemed as though Jirachi had decided to keep a low profile. It seemed that nobody would ever know for sure though, as a day later a red crystal containing a slumbering Jirachi was found at the very shrine where Christine had inadvertently awoken the wish granter. Knowing very well what Jirachi was capable, the local Officer Jenny convinced the town council to place a pair of warning signs at the shrine. The first was a very simple sign that prohibited singing at the shrine, and the second sign meanwhile was a more detailed one that told people of the incidents that the various wishes to Jirachi had caused. Whether or not these signs were actually going to do any good, nobody could say for sure.

As for the faction of Team Rocket that Richter had been leading, just about every agent and scientist at the base had been arrested and was awaiting trial. However, there had been no trace of Cassidy or Butch since they had retreated after losing to Lorain and Ross. There had also been no trace of Richter, and those involved in the incident could only speculate about where Jirachi had teleported him. All the police could do was list Richter as a wanted criminal and hope that he turned up somewhere. In the end, the truly important thing to the authorities was that another faction of Team Rocket had been dismantled.

When all was said and done, Bolt and his friends wanted to put the strange series of events in the town of Stardust Falls behind them. The time of the rock festival that Bolt's band had been preparing for had finally come, and once they were done with their performance it would be time for them to go back out on the road. Night had fallen, and at that moment Bolt was heading to his hotel room to get Christine for the show.

Bolt walked into the room to hear the sound of running water from the bathroom. "Christine, you ready to head out?"

"Just a sec!" Christine's voice called back in response.

The water stopped running, and what Bolt saw as Christine walked out of the bathroom on her crutches left him speechless. Christine had cut her hair so that it ended just above her shoulders. Also, a lock of her hair at the front had been dyed a bright shade of pink.

"Well? What do you think of my new look?" Christine asked.

"Wow! You look super cute." Bolt answered as his cheeks turned a deep shade of red. "But why the new look all of a sudden?"

"I wanted something to represent me starting this new life." Christine answered as she came closer.

"This really is a new chapter for both of us, isn't it?" Bolt replied as he put his arms around her. "It kinda sucks how we got here though. I mean, your dad's dead and Richter… as much as I hated the guy, I have to admit that I didn't want Jirachi to fry his brain the way he did."

"I know… but at the moment I don't care how we finally got here." Christine told him. "I'm just happy that we're finally together."

"Me too." Bolt replied before giving her a deep kiss on the lips. "Now let's get going. I've got a show to do."

* * *

The stars of the night sky were shining above at Cassidy and Butch wandered through the forest several miles away from the base. It was still several miles to the nearest road, and the duo had been forced to lay low to avoid the patrols that the police had been sending into the forest to find them. Now that the patrols had lessened, the duo's plan was to get out of Sinnoh and figure out their next move.

"I can't believe how we were ruined again by that gang of rock star punks!" Cassidy complained. "We were on the verge of forming a new Team Rocket and now this!"

"Maybe we should just forget about this whole Team Rocket thing and focus on small stuff for awhile." Butch suggested. "At least until the heat dies down a bit."

As soon as the duo entered a forest clearing, several large shapes suddenly emerged from the trees and surrounded them. Cassidy and Butch quickly saw that a team of ten men and twelve women had encircled them. What was surprising was that these strangers were wearing Team Rocket uniforms; though they weren't like any other Team Rocket uniform the duo had ever seen. They were all wearing black shirts with a red letter R on the front, though the R looked as though it had been painted on with a fine brush. The shirts worn by the men had long sleeves while the women were wearing short-sleeved shirts. The uniforms of these supposed Team Rocket soldiers also included a yellow vest, along with pairs of yellow gloves and black army boots. The men had on long yellow jeans while the women were wearing very short yellow jean-shorts, and each of them was wearing a hat that looked almost like the kind worn by police officers.

"What the hell is all this?" Butch asked. "If you punks are looking to join our faction of Team Rocket, you're outta luck! Our faction's been broken up as of last night!"

"No, no, no. You two have it all backwards." A voice from the darkness suddenly spoke. "We came here to get you to join us."

A few of the supposed Team Rocket soldiers moved to make a gap in the ring around Cassidy and Butch, and walking out of the darkness of the forest was a young woman with long bright yellow hair and rather wild grey eyes. She had on a Team Rocket uniform similar to the ones worn by the people that had surrounded Cassidy and Butch, only her shirt revealed her midriff and showed off the black lightning bolt-shaped tattoos at each side of her bellybutton. The woman had on a pair of long tight black pants in place of the yellow hot pants worn by the female Team Rocket soldiers in the group, and on her arms was a pair of elbow-high black leather gloves. Two black vertical lightning bolt tattoos adorned each of the woman's upper arms, and she had a smaller lightning bolt tattoo on her left cheek. Hanging form her belt was a black leather whip.

"Who the hell are you?" Cassidy asked.

"They call me… Trisha Lightning." The strange woman answered. "I'm a general in the true Team Rocket."

"So you're from a rival faction, huh?" Butch assumed.

"Those factions you're talking about are either being wiped out or absorbed into our group as we speak." Trisha told them. "Your group is one of the last along with one of the newest. Of course the police took care of your faction for us, which is a real shame because I was really hoping my guys could fry yours. Nothing gets my blood going like a good gang war."

"So what? Now that our faction's gone you've come to finish us off personally?" Cassidy assumed.

"That was pretty much my original plan, but I realized that I could use a couple of lieutenants to take care of some of the day-to-day crap." Trisha answered. "Word is you two used to be top agents in the original Team Rocket, and you were the ones who put this new faction together. Of course then you handed everything over to that Richter Chase punk, but you'll still make good lackeys for me I think."

"And what makes you think that'll you'll be a better leader of Team Rocket than Giovanni or Richter?" Butch asked.

"Hey. I'm just a high-ranking general in this organization." Trisha told them. "Our real leader is the one true heir to Team Rocket, Silver."

At this, the Team Rocket soldiers that were surrounding Cassidy and Butch put their fists to their chests in salute. "Hail Silver!"

"Wait, Silver?" Cassidy asked. "Are you talking about Giovanni's son?"

"That punk? I thought he wanted nothing to do with Team Rocket!" Butch recalled. "In fact he ended up disappearing a few years ago to get away from us or something."

"Well, Silver didn't want anything to do with his dad's organization to begin with, but then we met this consultant who showed us how we could remake Team Rocket in his own image." Trisha revealed. "We've spent the last few years consolidating our power. We've been able to move up our timetable ever since Silver's dad got arrested. Now all that's left is to fill a few more positions and crush a few groups that could be a pain in the ass to us, like these wimpy little Team Rocket factions. You two should be lucky that I've decided to hire you onto my staff."

"And why the hell should we join you?" Cassidy asked.

"Because I'm not giving you a choice?" Trisha responded as though the answer was obvious. "Let me put it to you this way. I'm not really hiring you as much as I am drafting you."

"There's no way in hell that we following a wannabe Team Rocket leader like you!" Butch declared.

Trisha sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Okay, looks like we do this the hard way. To show you I'm not a total bitch, I'm going to give you a proposition. We'll have a Pokemon battle right here and now. Beat me, and I'll let you two go on your way. If I beat you though, you're going to have to fall in line and be my lieutenants. Sound fair?"

"Guess we have no choice." Cassidy replied.

"Good. Now to make things even more fair, I'm only going to use a single Pokemon to take you on." Trisha continued. "Meanwhile, you guys can come at me with two of your Pokemon at once."

"Are you making fun of us?" Butch asked.

"Look, I don't have all night to waste with this crap." Trisha told them. "Just send out your Pokemon and let's get this over with."

"If she wants to make it harder on herself, let her!" Cassidy declared as she pulled out a pokeball. "Go Mandibuzz!"

The condor Pokemon flew out of her ball and hovered above the clearing.

"Fine! Go Shiftry!" Butch called with the throw of his pokeball.

Shiftry burst out of the ball and waited with Mandibuzz.

Trisha smirked as she took a black and white pokeball that was hanging from her belt. "Go… Zapdos!"

Flying out of the thrown pokeball was a large bird with jagged yellow feathers. The thunderbird had a long pointed beak like a drill and its eyes were pitch black. Cassidy and Butch trembled in fear upon seeing a Pokemon that they knew to be a powerful legendary bird from their home region of Kanto. Mandibuzz and Shiftry also began to tremble.

"Now!" Trisha called as she cracked her whip. "Use Shadow Bolt!"

Zapdos shrieked and fired to bolts of black electricity from its body, zapping Shiftry and Mandibuzz and knocking them to the ground. Both of Cassidy and Butch's Pokemon were out cold.

"Now, am I going to have to use a little more persuasion on you two?" Trisha asked.

"Uh… we'll do whatever you say, boss!" Butch quickly answered as he and Cassidy called back their two Pokemon. "We're totally at your command!"

"Good." Trisha replied as she called back Zapdos. "One rule though. Do not call me boss! It's either General Lightning or mistress, got it?"

"Yes bo – I mean mistress!" Cassidy responded.

"Fine." Trisha replied as she turned on her heel. "Now let's go Cassidy! Bitch!"

"My name is Butch!" the green-haired Rocket agent told her.

"I heard what I said! Now get your ass in gear!" Trisha ordered. "We've got a revolution to prepare for."

WEEK OF THE WISH GRANTER – END

* * *

 **Afterward:** That wraps up yet another story in my Pokemon AU. I have to say that this story ended up going differently than what I had originally planned in the outline I did for it, but I think it ultimately turned out better than what I had planned. I'd like to thank everyone who read or reviewed this story, because I think it was your input that kind of swayed me to make the changes from the outline that I did.

Now then, as much as some of you reading may hate to hear this, I've decided to take another little break from this AU now that this story is done. The good news is that I'm now closer than ever to writing Reign of Silver, but because of the way this story turned I need to rethink things and see if I need to make any changes to what I had originally planned. In fact I may end up doing one more little story for this AU before we get into Reign of Silver, but I haven't decided anything for sure. Hopefully I won't keep everyone waiting for too long, but sadly art cannot be rushed. So until next time, thanks again for reading.

Please review and let me know what you think.


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